I’ve arrived at the conclusion that an “Official Rule Book” is needed to guide people into making better decisions, thereby leading to healthier individuals and a more authentic way of life for all — think of it as . . .
. . . A Road Map to a Better Society:
Dick Peligro’s Official Rule Book
* All right-thinking individuals will resist the regrettable mass delusion that black leather jackets are somehow the final word in fashion statements.
* Men will not have metal inserted into any part of their head, excepting bona fide medical procedures such as steel plates and tooth fillings; for women, ears are exempt (maximum two piercings per ear).
* Those wishing to name a public commercial eatery a “ristorante” will have the good grace to locate their establishment in Genoa or Milan. In the U.S., it’s spelled “restaurant.”
* No parent will name a child Ashley (or Ashleigh, or Ashlee) for the next 20 years, effective immediately. After 10 years, exceptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis for select (i.e. of noble birth) British citizens or decadent aristocrats from the Deep South (males only).
* The name Kaitlyn (or Katelyn, or Catelin) is banned altogether.
Bobby Labonte, French-American "athlete"
* Professional race car drivers will only be permitted to wear their racing suits — yes, the fireproof ones slathered in corporate logos — when they are actually driving a race car, as opposed to, for example, appearing in commercials depicting them (ostensibly) having dinner at Outback.
*All braille keypads will be removed from drive-through banking facilities, effective immediately. Braille elevator keys, great; braille door signs, of course; braille menus in restaurants, certainly. But braille keypads at ANY drive-through facility, banking or otherwise, are simply wrong.
* “Cut out all those exclamation marks,” F. Scott Fitzgerald once declared. “An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke.” We heartily endorse the sentiment, while shuddering to think what Fitz’s exquisite sensibilities might have endured had he lived to see “emoticons.” While the former are to be used with the utmost restraint, the latter are seen as frivolous (and frankly, a bit embarrassing) by most reasonable adults.
Particularly egregious abusers of both (e.g. company newsletter editors, elementary school teachers) are on notice that severe measures may be deemed necessary.
Martina Navratilova
* Another giant of 20C American letters, H. L. Mencken, confessed at one point that if he had his way, “no man guilty of golf would be eligible to any office of trust or profit under the United States, and all female athletes would be shipped to the white-slave corrals of the Argentine.” Now, genius endures and truth is eternal, so one is hesitant in presuming to find fault, but with all due respect to HLM, times have changed, and his worthy suggestion might need an update.
(It must be noted that he wrote this remark in 1943, a year or two before Martina Navratilova was born, back before there were female sportscasters like Jeanne Zelasko).
Jeanne Zelasko
Undoubtedly, Mencken enjoyed condescending to our Latino neighbors to the south, but — their mythic status as free-spirited gauchos of the rolling pampas notwithstanding — it would be a mistake to underestimate the businessmen of Argentina, an impressively cosmopolitan society. One must doubt whether they would have been willing to take Navratilova off our hands . . . at any price.
And certainly, Mencken himself would be the first to agree that his second category must be expanded to include Zelasko and her ilk.
(to be continued)
