Devonne Brown

Step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back. Rule number one. My kids stomped every crack they could find.

People pleasers. Suck ups. Protectors of the faith. We can’t live with them, we can’t live without them. If only I could do it without going to extremes. Tell me a rule and I’ll follow it to the ends of the earth and take everybody down with me.

School rules? Class rules? No hoods? No earbuds? I’m the enforcer. You won’t see a hood up or an earbud on anybody’s head on my watch, no sir. I enforce those rules in my classroom. You won’t see any happy campers in my room wearing hoods, chewing gum, or shooting baskets. I don’t care if it’s four degrees in my room, that hood ain’t gonna be on your head. You’re not chewing gum to shove up under one of my desks either. Don’t even think about wadding a piece of paper and shooting a basket.. It’s minus ten if you miss, minus five if you make it…right off the top of your grade. Just don’t. My rules are for the greater good. My sanity. 

No, I’m not popular, but don’t tell me to do something and expect less than it being done.

At home things are different. Rules are for safety. No food, drink, or tv in the bedrooms. No reptiles, no rodents, no birds inside. It’s all about pestilence and rest. Who can’t rest if there’s pestilence running around the house? Those aren’t my values, they’re my obsessions. My obsessions that I raised my children with and I stand by. So, I warped my kids a bit. 

Rules were meant to keep the kids safe. I never had to worry about anacondas or boa constrictors eating children or cats because they were a moot point. The closest we ever got to a pet rodent was watching Roddy in Disney’s “Flushed Away.” We all got to love Roddy, the main rat’s adventures in the underworld and we never once had to touch real rats. 

Now, I’ve got two cats on mouse patrol. They do a good job too. Once in a while, I’ll find a mouse carcass with a hole in its little head, a dot of blood oozing out its lifeless eye. It broke my rule, it deserved to die. Dumbass. That’s what cats are for. No rodents. The cats are doing a damn fine job of keeping the birds out too, I must say. I’ve heard that if a bird gets in the house it’s an omen that someone will die. Keeping the birds outside has diverted all sorts of human tragedy. You can thank me at any time.

So, I’m a cranky old nut job obsessed with doing shit the way it should be done. You don’t have to do anything like me though. You do you for your sake. Your rules keep your mind safe. If you need to drive ninety miles an hour in a sixty-five zone, do it. I’m glad I’m not in your car. Our rules, proclivities, keep our feet out of the creek when it’s freezing. We’ll be ok.