Bad Day 347--The House Rules

Sister 3 is visiting with her three children--Nieces 3, 4, &5. I know, you are thinking how many sisters does this woman have? Just the three, and a brother. Sister 3 drove from Texas so they are very tired, but I have mentioned that I come from a family of story tellers, so the children and Sister 3 and the nieces are all staying up late telling stories in the family tradition. I, however, have to go to work in the morning, so I am going to bed, as much as it pains me. I so wish I could take vacation to hang out with her, but Afghanistan ate all my leave.

In the spirit of trying to have a more structured summer than in the past, we made a list of house rules which we all signed and then of course lost the paper and who knows if we ever will find it again or remember what we put on it. But the children reminded me the other day that we actually do have family rules, albeit rather unorthodox ones. Here are some of the rules.

1. Everyone shall eat olives, both green and black.
2. No water guns at the dinner table unless Mom shoots first.
3. We only stick our tongue out at King George.
4. Do not, under any circumstances, ever, ever route for the Redskins.
5. No nail polish anywhere but the bathroom. (That one is really for Child 3.)
6. You can dye your hair blue but not bleach it blond.

Child 1 tells me that rule number 6 is rather backwards, but I grew up in Texas and blue hair was not acceptable but everyone bleached their hair blond and why would you want to look like you had straw hair when it could be blue? It makes perfect sense to me. If I were a teenage girl, I would so want my hair and my eyes to match.

People in Russia who sent these packages are having a worse day than me. Instead of unloading them properly from a train car, the railroad worker just threw them out the door. Literally. Into a big pile. If you click on the link, you can see the packages flying through the air.

I hope nobody had liquids in those packages. Or photo frames, or glassware, or anything remotely breakable. I'm pretty sure that those carts nearby were for loading the packages into and that the railroad didn't pay him to just throw things out the door. But thank you, Mr. Lazy, for reminding me to never, ever send a package through the mail to Russia. FedEx might be OK, but then you run the risk of your present or whatever ending up on a deserted island with Tom Hanks. I love that movie. I need to watch it again. At least he actually uses the stuff in the packages rather than just throw it around. Seriously, I hop this guy gets fired. Will somebody in Russia let me know if they catch him?