House Rules and Taboos

Taboos are not the same as house rules. I’ve stumbled into that truth. What’s a house rule? Well, at my sister's house the knives must go in the dishwasher points down. At a friend's lakehouse in the distant past, there was no such rule, however, there was a blue cup that was never to be put in the dishwasher, just rinsed well in hot water and replaced on the shelf. At my best and oldest friend’s home, you must run the water in the bathroom sink for a minute or two before flushing the john and at my house in order to get out of the bathroom you pull down on the knob while simultaneously yanking the door towards you. House rules are never explained unless a guest requests an explanation and they are not always fully connected to reality.

My sister says the knives should go down to prevent the drowsy first riser from impaling a hand as he tries to find the espresso carafe, but I think it’s a holdover from when her kids were little. They are now in their mid-thirties. I violated the never put the blue cup in the dishwasher rule in the midst of doing a whatever- I- could- to- help- clean- up- this- pit- frenzy. I forgot. I had been told the no blue cup in the dishwasher rule two days earlier. The cup, I was hotly informed the next morning, was NOT dishwasher safe. I then made things worse by pointing out that the blue cup had gone through the dishwasher process just fine. Breakfast was sullen, a morning boat ride was cancelled and we left earlier than we had planned. There isn’t any connection that I know of between running water down a sink drain and “air in the pipes”. That was the explanation for the routine. There is an alarming sound made by the toilet after you flush, but it sounds to me more like a sticky intake valve than air. Maybe I should volunteer to fix it. There is a perfectly good reason for the twisting, pulling, yanking necessary to get out of our bathroom, it’s necessary. I AM TOO GOING TO FIX THAT!! It’s only been like that since we moved in four years ago.

House rules have a ritualistic feel to them. Okay, not the bathroom door one, but the others do. They are ways of bringing order and when they are properly performed the world feels in synch with those present. Ah, no dangerous pointy objects, Ah, my blue cup is right where it belongs, Ah, --wait, I can’t hear over the weird sounds---the air god has been appeased. They are some of the little touch points that bring, with some irrationality, a little rationality.

Violating house rules is seldom fatal to a friendship. There is always a little tension amongst guests and hosts, but love carries us through the rough spots. Love and the right apology, - whoops, this knife is sticking up right next to the espresso carafe. Ha-Ha.

The blue cup fiasco was forgotten by the following weekend and was never mentioned again by any of us. Ever. It had changed from a house rule to a taboo. Taboos are not only not explained by hosts, they are not mentioned, they are not spoken of, they lie about the places we inhabit waiting for us to stumble upon them. They are the unmentionable subjects, sometimes merely politics, sometimes religion, sometimes both, sometimes a recent incident, sometimes a happening so ancient and long forgotten it’s difficult to recall why it became taboo in the first place. Sometimes we forget what is taboo. Taboos simply float there, mid-air, waiting for someone to stumble. Which is how a couple of days ago, in the midst of a too loud defense of Mary Todd Lincoln, I tried to say something about how the reaction in the 1860’s to the death of children was less severe than it is these days and I crashed right into a taboo.



Having a friend who knows the right thing to say at such a moment is one of the most precious gifts I possess. Having the sense to listen to her is just something I have stumbled into and take no credit for.