Gumnick Family Rules

As presented in the Souvenir Booklet distributed at the Gumnick Family Reunion 2006 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, July 2006. I haven’t had time to type it all in yet, so feel free to jump in and add to this page if you have a copy of the booklet available.

1. Pets are to be regarded as full members of the family.
2. Mail is to be opened and disposed of in a particular manner; mail that is not important is to be torn in half twice. (Editor’s note: Apparently, obsessive-compulsive disorder is genetic.)
3. Always begin a project without all necessary equipment at hand. Be sure there is someone around who can bring you a wet paper towel and a dry paper towel.
4. Communication guidelines:
   1. Interruption IS tolerated.
   2. It is quite all right to come in 10 minutes before a TV show ends and ask for a recap.
   3. Yelling from room to room is a time-honored Gumnick custom, although no one has actually reported hearing anything using this method.
   4. Only a few members of the family have mastered Jane Latin, but those who have enjoy communicating in this tongue and leaving the rest of us in the dark.
5. In the matter of acquisition of goods, remember the following:
   1. Cheap is good.
   2. Free is best.
   3. Broken is okay.
   4. Christmas trees may be stolen or reconstructed à la Granddad Lawler.
6. It is perfectly legal to wear another’s clothing, even if it is new.
   
   Never, ever put new shoes on the table, or they will hurt.
   
   You get a prize if every pair of shoes you own is on the floor of the family room at the same time.
7. Favorite clothes must be disposed of after 30 years.
8. On the subject of child care:
   1. Never wake a sleeping baby.
   2. Never tie anything to any part of your body.
   3. Never stick forks in light sockets without first increasing your insurance.
   4. Never make a telephone with bare wires, but if you do, don’t plug it in while your parents are out.
9. As to conservation of worry, be sure to keep moving those worries up as soon as the top one goes away.
10. Just because something is in a margarine container* is no reason to assume it is margarine**.
    *or whipped topping container
    **or whipped topping (--Mom)