Laws Irrevocably Decreed . . .

Ferguson Family Commandments
(I can dream can’t I)


NOTE: While God may have only needed Ten Commandments for His imperfect children, as far as I know (and contrary to what others MAY think) - He’s been the only perfect parent to ever exist. Not all commandments have specific “because’s”; however if you are guilty of breaking one of them…well, let’s just say that things could get ugly!


Commandment Number One:
Thou Shalt NOT offer your mother, while sitting in church, her choice of gum flavors …
Especially if she’s startled to see you WITH gum in the first place and demands, “Where did you get that gum?”
Your reply should NEVER be, “From the bottom of my seat – there’s a WHOLE bunch of it down there – what color do you want?” because…
Not only will your mother NOT appreciate your generosity, she WILL make you spit that gum out.

Commandment Number Two:
Thou Shalt NOT talk while you are allowing the dog to lick your face…
Especially if you believe that myth about a dog’s mouth being cleaner than a humans, because…
The last time your mother checked there was still a whole world of difference between human and dog “toilet paper!”

Commandment Number Three:
Thou Shalt NOT go and ask your Father, if your mother has already said, “NO!”
Especially if your mother has already said, “NO!” so many times that the veins are now starting to pop out of her neck, and that man she married has been working himself to the bone for the last 25 years just so he could provide for his ungrateful children more opportunities than he enjoyed himself because…
In the first place your father has learned (from past experience) NEVER to say “yes” to ANYTHING before discussing the matter with your mother, thereby discovering your duplicity, and in the second place why would you purposely want to get your Dad into so much trouble, anyways!

Commandment Number Four:
Thou Shalt NOT repeatedly sing the same song from the same Disney movie…
Especially if:
1. You can’t seem to remember all the words;
2. The words you can remember aren’t the correct ones;
3. You’ve inherited your father’s singing abilities and can’t carry a tune in a bucket and seem to enjoy immensely the unique experience of holding that last note – while remaining hopelessly off-key;
4. Your sole purpose for singing the song in the first place is to irritate your older sister!
Because…your mother is trying to drive the car and repeatedly singing the incorrect words to the same song while your other siblings whine, groan, and complain HAS been known to cause early onset insanity – that or a REALLY good temper tantrum – from your mother! Keep remembering what happened the last time your mother said, “Don’t make me pull this car over!”

Commandment Number Five:
Thou Shalt NOT make your mother say the phrase, “Don’t make me pull this car over!”…
Especially if you have any desire to see adulthood because…
She WILL pull that car over!

Commandment Number Six:
Thou Shalt NOT super glue ANYTHING together (and I MEAN ANYTHING!) and where in the heck did you get hold of a bottle of super glue in the first place…
Especially if you were sent upstairs to clean your room because…
1. Your mom may not care that the guys from school said it doesn’t really work on skin and any interns working at the local urgent care will probably just laugh when you tell them that one;
2. That you can glue two coins together so that they still LOOK like a single coin, but are now “double thick”;
3. That you just wanted to show dad what sort of gloves a person would wear if they were a Siamese twin and had been born connected by the palms of their hands.

Commandment Number Seven:
Thou Shalt NOT come into this world a readymade tomboy…
Especially if your mother has already given birth to four male children and has been waiting for YEARS to have a baby girl she could fuss over with hair ribbons, and lacy socks, and all sorts of other pink foo-foo’s because…
That’ll just break her heart!

Commandment Number Eight:
Thou Shalt NOT refuse to allow your hair to be adorned in ANY way, shape, or form…
Especially if you were blessed to be born with the most incredibly beautiful, naturally curly hair, which looks absolutely adorable with a “pretty” in it, and you are the only girl in a family of four brothers, and you plan on growing up to someday announce your plans of becoming a cosmetologist because… the irony will NOT escape your mother!

Commandment Number Nine:
Thou Shalt NOT forget that your parent’s bedroom and bathroom doors are never to be unlocked unless you are in a life-and-death situation and there is at least a pint of blood involved. Therefore, do NOT unlock your mother’s bedroom door, and then her bathroom door…
Especially if you only want to ask her, “Can people still live if they’re ‘borned wiff’ six toes?” because…your mother will NOT consider the answer to that question a life or death situation! At least wait until she’s finished bathing – and yes, she did hear you knocking the first six times!

Commandment Number Ten:
Thou Shalt NOT forget that as far as you are concerned - scissors are ONLY for cutting paper…
Especially if it’s the day before your first kindergarten class, or the day of school pictures, and you USED to have beautiful long flowing hair; OR you are wearing a dress that your mother spent six hours on, just to hand sew the lace. This same commandment applies to permanent magic markers.

Commandment Number Eleven:
Thou Shalt NOT forget that your mother’s sewing scissors are sacrosanct…
Especially if you’re planning on cutting paper…or aluminum pop cans... or rusty old barbed wire…or thin pieces of balsa wood…

Commandment Number Twelve:
Thou Shalt NOT put things back in the refrigerator in their original carton…
Especially if the carton is empty because…when your mother does a quick glance in the frig before heading to the grocery store it might look like you have all sorts of milk, and eggs, and cottage cheese… and she won’t discover that they are, in truth, empty - until they are desperately needed.

Commandment Number Thirteen:
Thou Shalt NOT point out ANY of the discrepancies in your mother’s arguments…
Especially while she’s still ranting! Take the advice of your older, wiser sister and, "Just nod your head and say ‘Yes!’”

Commandment Number Fourteen:
Thou Shalt NOT give your mom a blow-by-blow description of the last cartoon you watched nor repeat verbatim every single comment made from ALL the characters in the last Disney movie you’ve watched…particularly if you plan on including a verbal description of all visual stunts, along with every word spoken by each and every character, AND the original cartoon was only half an hour long and it’s going to take you more than an hour and a half to do it!
Especially when you’ve proven yourself in the past to be completely incapable of:
1. Remembering a simple phone message;
2. Most of the really important house rules that have been in place since your birth;
3. The fact that you are NOT allowed to play with matches;
4. Your mother’s birth date;
5. Where you left your homework…or backpack…or shoes…
6. The “no friends in, no friends out” rule while your parents were away;
7. At least 8 of your 10 spelling words this week!

Commandment Number Fifteen:
Thou Shalt NOT call your grandma on the home phone line, long distance, in the middle of the day when the rates are the highest…
Especially if:
1. You’re only calling to complain about her daughter’s methods of discipline.
2. You’re only calling to give Grandma a 6 page long Christmas Wish list, while ignoring section 6 of Commandment 15.
3. You’re only calling to tell her all about the “new baby Jesus is sending me!” Especially if grandma had previously been unaware that a new baby was on the way.
4. You’re only calling to sing (or play) her a song - when you aren’t sure of all the words; or have lost part of the music; or you are using an instrument not normally found in an orchestra;
5. You’re only calling to discuss - in the minutest detail - the plot from your latest viewing experiences.
6. Your mom’s cell phone has free long distance.

Commandment Number Sixteen:
Thou Shalt NOT allow your parents to fork out $300 for your first college class…
Especially if:
You’ve previously raised your mother’s hopes to a vaulted level by being her only child to get straight A’s in school.
You’re planning to decide, “College isn’t for you” and then enroll in a beauty college that costs more than $10,000 a semester.

Commandment Number Seventeen:
Thou Shalt NOT make your mother repeatedly ask you if your room is clean yet…
Especially if:
1. You are planning on constantly nagging her because you want to go over to a friends house;
2. You are sitting on your duff watching a mindless T.V. show;
3. You are begging for a dollar so you can go to the new Wal-Mart and get a slushy;
4. You “forgot” you had invited friends over to your house to play today and their mother just dropped them off at the sidewalk and then drove away!

Commandment Number Eighteen:
Thou Shalt NOT wake your mother…
Especially if:
1. It is 2:30 in the morning and you are only waking her to ask if you can go potty.
2. She is taking a desperately needed afternoon nap…and you are waking her with the screams and tears of your little sister, whom you have been mercilessly teasing. Trust me – that is just NOT a good idea!

Commandment Number Nineteen:
Thou Shalt NOT use one of the towels from your mother’s ONLY “guest set”…
Especially if:
1. You are planning to use them to dry off the newly washed dog…
2. Or the newly washed car…
3. Or your shoes which you forgot to wash off first…
4. Or wipe off the paintbrushes recently used on your pinewood derby car…
5. Or the toilet paper roll was empty, when there are 12 replacement rolls kept under the sink!!!
Especially since she keeps an entire shelf of at least a couple dozen rags in the laundry room, just for that sort of thing – but only the first 4 things and NEVER, EVER, the fifth thing!

Commandment Number Twenty:
Thou Shalt NOT share potty training achievements with visiting guests…
Especially if your plans include asking the guests, “ya wanna see my poop!”

Commandment Number Twenty One:
Thou Shalt NOT use the lame excuse “I wasn’t sure if I was ‘post too, and I didn’t want you to get mad at me in case I wasn’t”…
Especially if you didn’t seem to worry about that possibility BEFORE you set the back yard on fire.

Commandment Number Twenty Two:
Thou Shalt NOT show your mother something she has unsuccessfully been looking for, for at least the entire past week…
Especially if she already went out and bought another one AFTER completely turning your house upside down, and you’ve had it all along in your “treasures chest,” and she’s asked you at least a dozen times if you’ve seen it, but you didn’t think it was “this” one that she was looking for – even though that one is the ONLY one in the entire household. Trust me - let your Dad handle this one!

Commandment Number Twenty Three:
Thou Shalt NOT call your mother on the “emergency only – there’d-better-be-blood-involved” cell phone while she’s grocery shopping…
Especially if:
1. You’re calling to find out where she keeps the “cleaner/destructor” and plan on hanging up AFTER she tells you where it is, but BEFORE you give her any explanations!
2. Your Dad is sitting on the couch next to you and, contrary to you and all five of your sibling’s belief, IS perfectly capable of handling whatever situation has arisen!
3. Your sole purpose for calling is to ask, in the most pitiful voice imaginable, “when are you coming home”… especially when she’s only been gone 15 minutes and hasn’t even made it inside the store yet!
4. You’re just calling to tattle on another sibling.
5. You’re just calling to ask if you can eat something that you know perfectly well is for school lunches ONLY!

Commandment Number Twenty Four:
Thou Shalt NOT come home from ANY activity just so you can argue with your parents about your curfew…

Commandment Number Twenty Five:
Thou shalt NOT cause your mother, and especially your father, 2 weeks of untold agony…
Especially if you are a missionary serving in a VERY far away foreign country that requires you to fly in an airplane at least 23 hours to get to; and your family hasn’t heard a word from you in the 16 days since you called them from an international airport in Taipei, Taiwan; and your mother has had just the dickens of a time prohibiting your father from calling the mission home on an hourly basis; and you FINALLY decide you ought to AT LEAST send them an e-mail; Said e-mail SHOULD be at LEAST as long as your e-mail address! LONGER would be preferable!

Commandment Number Twenty Six:
Thou shalt NOT let your parents sleep…
Especially if your brother who is in a foreign country and hasn’t been heard from in 16 days is on his P-day and is instant messaging and you and your brother are the only ones up at 11 p.m. and you THINK that they won’t want to be woken up!
Trust me, THEY WILL!
Especially if you also happen to be one of those same children that HAVE woken your parents up since the time you could first walk and talk - for every other miniscule reason previously known only to small children, including sales calls or asking if you can go potty…
Because…If you thought then that your parents cared about whether or not you made it safely to the potty and back, let me tell you, they sure as shooting WILL care about how one of your siblings is doing clear on the other side of the world!
Thou SHALT waketh them up because…your Dad hates to see your Mom cry, and it’ll just REALLY break her heart!

To be continued . . .