Summer Rules

We love a good laugh here at the Sushi on a Stick household.
That’s why we were very excited last night when Ruby brought home the Official Statement of Rules for the Summer Holidays from the Juvenile Control Centre (sorry, junior high school) up on the hill.
There’s mirth aplenty to be had from reading through the two sheets of closely-typed A4 paper. I can’t do it justice here so I’m just going to pass on a selection of my personal favourites.

• Do not eat or drink to excess.
• If you discover any health problems, such as tooth decay, seek medical advice.
• Avoid staying up late and/or sleeping in.
• Observe the rules of the road. In particular, on a bicycle, do not dink your friends, ignore traffic signals or ride in the rain while holding an umbrella in one hand.
• Do not drive a car/motorbike without a licence. (So if you’re 13 years old and want to drive a car/motorbike, be sure to get your licence first.)
• Do not sit up until late in the evening watching TV or playing video games.
• Do not go out at night. (Here it helpfully provides the definition of night as “after the sun goes down”. Thanks for that.)
• When going out, students should ideally wear school uniform or, if not, appropriate attire for junior high school students. (And here it adds that the choice of attire may be left up to the parents. This seems very magnanimous of the school. Can we be trusted with such responsibility? After all, apparently we’re incapable of supervising our own children at the beach.)
• Do not go into department stores or supermarkets unless you have good reason to do so.
• Students are forbidden from visiting karaoke clubs, game centers or cinemas without a parent present. (Thirteen year olds? As if.)
And right near the end, the very best one of all:
• If possible, make time to talk with your family members. (Fat chance of that! You should see the pile of homework that Ruby came home with today.)

I was speaking with the principal recently and he finally set me straight. It turns out that the summer holiday is not actually a holiday at all; it’s just that the weather is so hot and oppressive that it would be impossible to study in the classrooms, which don’t have air conditioners, so instead the school sends the students home to study there for a month before calling them back in September when the weather starts to cool down. He was smiling as he said it, but he was deadly serious.

And now we know what the teachers are doing staying back until eight o’clock every night: writing up useful lists of rules like this. Incidentally there was also another two-page Statement of Rules on Swimming, but I accidentally screwed it up and threw it straight in the bin.

So if anyone out there can think of any other zany rules we could add to the list, feel free to leave a comment. Prizes for best ideas. Must be 32 words or less, neatest correct entry wins.