Parents spend a great deal of time trying to teach their children certain values, showering them at every opportunity with golden nuggets of wisdom that they’ve picked up along their own journey through life, in hopes that the stupid mongrels, who just hung their sister off a tree branch to play piñata, might amount to something more than drunken convicts.
Despite our uncanny ability to zone out during most of these blessed teaching opportunities, a few important lessons have stuck with us… Mother is always right, if you want to continue to breathe outside air and feel the warmth of the sun… If you throw your sandwiches away at school, someone will find out… The mother phone tree should never be underestimated… Life is always better with a bowl of ice cream… But the bit of instruction that has really come to be an integral part of our lives is what we call the 10% rule. The basic principle of this rule is that any story you tell need only contain 10% truth. The other 90% is pretty much whatever the heck else you want it to be. We have yet to determine if this rule falls into the category of literary devices such as hyperbole, apostrophe, tenpercentole… or if it is more of a scientific law, a thermodynamic measurement of how much we’ll burn in hell.
Needless to say, it has come in handy in numerous situations. From the justification of class II criminal offenses, to excusals from school, to possibly its most essential use, writing research papers. It saved me once when I was about five and had the urge to spank baby Cecily’s diapered bum. I threw all my five-year-old muscle and might into that smack. Of course the kid had to start crying and then mom had to come running in and well… you can see where this is going… When asked what happened, I confidently responded that, “I came in here and she just started crying.” At least ten percent of that response was completely accurate. I came in the room and Cecily did start crying. And that’s how it works. We’ll leave more recent examples out of it.
So, why are we telling you all this? This our official warning to you that anything that appears on this blog may only contain 10% truth. If you happen to be included in any of our entries and feel that we are misrepresenting you or your life, we apologize but urge you to keep in mind our standards. Raise the bar. Raise the bar?
3 comments:
I vote for recent examples!
Why overlook them when they may be a source of valuable learning and inspiration the way the bum-smack story has always been?
(It may well qualify as life lesson history-ole...)
It does beg another question:
What do you do if you catch on fire?
Or...
what popular neighborhood activity is an ambitious and profitable source of increasing funds for annual December financial demands?
I actually live by the reverse...I call it the 90% rule...yes, it may require that you be honest, sweet, and kind (read BORING) for ninety percent of the time instead of just ten... but it actually enables you to be truly and genuinely rotten 10% of the time. And here's the best part...you actually get away with it! Of course, you know all this because I live with you. And no, I wasn't indulging in my 10% when all the ice cream disappeared from the fridge :)
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