Rules of Engagement: what happens when a couple moves in together and one of them is terribly bossy
Do not put your shoes on anything other than the floor. Doing so shows a sign of pure disrespect. Plus it brings all kinds of bad luck. I don’t know what kind, just a lot of it. This means no shoes on the chairs, beds, car seats, loveseats, backs of toilets, tops of gas burning grills. Got it?
When you cut the garlic, you need to make sure that you throw out the garlic papers and inner green roots while saying, “Pour les pauvres.” Stop confusing pepper with the poor.
Pauvres is not poivres, ok? We don’t know why we say this, but an aunt told us to do this when we were children, to think of the poor when disposing of garlic remains, and she’s very good with money. We don’t want to be poor. Maybe the garlic papers sprout in the garbage and garbage is another way of, oh never mind.
Never eat pork. This is not so much Jewish as it is common sense. Pigs are, well, pigs! I would never indulge in eating such a filthy animal. Make sure when you make lentils? That you take out the ham bone half an hour before serving. For good luck. Ham is decidedly and definitely not pork. Trust me.
Knives: even talking about knives is bad luck. It’s bad luck to buy another person a knife. It’s bad luck to spend more time with a knife than is absolutely necessary. You’re cutting a tomato, ok. A watermelon, fine. But spend more time sharpening it or even reminiscing about the shop in the foubourg where you bought it is only begging for trouble. You see an ad in a store for a deal on a set of steak knives? Go out and get it if you have to; don’t even think of getting it for your sister. Knives are such bad luck that I am standing here rubbing a penny on my outer right thigh to keep harm from coming.
Even if you were to give your parents a set of really fine, hand-wrought knives, and attached some money to the outside packaging, it would still be bad luck. Yes, money and knives do go together but, well, see pork above.
If you think the Simpsons is funny, you should see Jerry Lewis in….hey, stop laughing! I mean it.
Eating chocolate will make you fat. Eating fudge will make you fat. Eating that bagel will make you fat. Eating sandwiches will make you fat. That egg for breakfast? Fat. Tuna melt, mmm smells good. Why don’t you make me one? Eating just an avocado spread on tortilla chips with a drop of tamari on it is going to ruin your dinner. No, that cannot be dinner. For dinner you need to have dinner. You aren’t having much for dinner. Aren’t you hungry? I can’t finish the salad, you eat it. If you don’t, I’ll have to, oh allright.
Don’t wear yourself out by exercising. If you do yoga, and walk around campus and then walk the dog at night, you’re not going to make it.
I am the expert of piling things up on the back of a bicycle. If only you put a little effort into it you’d see that it’s effortless. I am the expert of our dog – I know what he’s thinking. I am a lighting expert. Turn that desk light up or the bulb will fall out eventually. It’s gravity! Besides it looks better that way. Don’t squint. You spend too much time in front of that computer.
Oh, I know all about maps. I can tell you everything there is to know about Normandy. I lived in India for two years: I know. Africa? Ask me anything. If you only asked me about silk you would have known that that was a cheap knockoff: trust me, I know. My mother used to make that recipe every Sunday for forty years. What do you mean there’s another way? What do you mean ‘she liked it when she ate it with frosting’?
I know everything there is to know about the voice and especially diction and yours is sadly lacking. Breathe more from your diaphragm. Here let me teach you. Hey you’re a little chubby right there. Breathe in like this and your voice won’t get all screechy. If you keep pushing yours that high, you’re going to break…see, it’s gone. I told you it would.
See?