Ah the Silly Rule People, How I Missed You
07. Jul, 2009 
12 Comments
If you walk the bike path in Northampton past Smith College, you eventually cross a wooden bridge over section of river down by the old Felt factory. Every morning, my husband and I take the dogs there, and then I shimmy under the wooden railing, scale the hillside to 50 ft below and call for my husband to release the dogs. They barrel down the hill, dive into the water and proceed to frolic in the naturally enclosed area, safe for them to be off lead. Every morning we complete this ritual, surprised that no one else has found this spot.
Until someone stopped us and said, “You know, you’re not supposed to go down there.” Ah, that’s right, that’s why no one else takes their dogs for a swim. I remember this guy now, the good citizen who feels compelled to tell the world what they’re not-supposed-to, one of those that make up only a small portion of the population, but seem to ruin everyone’s fun. Was there a reason? Nope, just not-supposed-to, and by the sound of it, this man was quite bothered by our apparent rule breaking.
My husband and I have had our touches with absurd rule following before. Once, we spent a day floating in Seattle’s Puget Sound on a $40 inflatable raft, a definite not-supposed-to, but insisted on buying $30 life jackets, that we didn’t just have in the boat, but wore for the entire time. Looking back, it seems absurd, us floating in the Sound with our two little paddles, easily picked up by a current if we were unlucky, but being very good boy scouts with out life jackets on and buckled. Why did we feel compelled to be both reckless and overly cautious? There’s no way to know.
We are not above following silly made up rules, especially those that offer the illusion of safety, but after traveling for a while, I can’t help but feel much more laisez-faire about what we should be doing (or not).
Perhaps it’s the months spent trying to decipher travel options in foreign countries, or seeing markets with unrefrigerated meats or watching 6 year olds throw firecrackers at each other– you stop believing what you’re told, you start believing that most things are fine and you realize that even unsafe things rarely end in tragedy.
I call it the “probably everything will be okay, because most of the time stuff works out” theory of the universe.
Some people just call it, “common sense”.
So when this young man, blustery and indignant, tells me my dogs are big old rule breakers, I have to try not to laugh. Really, is this country like this, I wonder? Has it really gotten to the point, where the hall monitors are in charge? Or is it just a few, making sure that dogs are only in dog parks and people in people parks. A compulsion for order expressed in a fetish for land use categorization.
Or does being away from home make me forget the social contract? Did I care? Not really. In the end, my dogs had the most lovely swim this morning. Ah, it’s good to be back home.
I totally know what you mean about the hall monitors. I live in a condo community and last month was trying to rescue sone orphaned ducklings from our pond. Someone had run over the mother duck. Several of us were involved. In order to try and get the baby ducks we had to get in the pond to try and get them in the direction of our nets. The hall monitors came out in full force, along with a copy if the condo rules yelling us that we were breaking them because we were in the lake and there was no swimming in the lake. Of course, we weren’t swimming for pleasure but for a purpose (and we weren’t really swimming anyway.) I mguess trying to rescue orphaned ducklings wasn’t as important as following “the rules.”
Sometimes I see these silly rule signs telling me not to do something stupid which it never entered my head to do in the first place and think….hmmm….maybe I should try it.
Or is that just me?
Suz: That kills me! I always wonder, WHY do they care!
Kate: Yes, I totally do too!
In all reality, they are just being big asses. Or is that just my inner rebellious, traveling self talking now?
As Ben Franklin once said “common sense is not shared by the common man.”
Some rules are meant to be broken. Period.
LOVE your new site design by the way.
And at least in another country, when you don’t follow the silly rules, you can play the clueless foreigner card…sounds terrible, but sometimes, there are just so many interesting things to explore in the off-limits areas.
Liz´s last blog ..Online Resources for the Location-Independent Professional
Just to play devil’s advocate here, what if the rule makes sense but people think it shouldn’t apply to them because they’re special? Like the rule about not letting dogs off leash in certain areas because they’ll disturb the wildlife.
The reason there are so many rules these days is that there are so many people. When there were fewer people to fill up all the space, we didn’t need so many rules.
>>I call it the “probably everything will be okay, because most of the time stuff works out” theory of the universe.
That’s one thing living in Asia has taught me. I often get my dander up over one issue or another, and worry as a result. “Don’t worry,” a Chinese colleague says, “Everything will be okay.”
Strangely enough, it always is. I recently started subscribing to this school of thought.
Stevo´s last blog ..23 differences between 5-Star Hotels and Hostels
I laughed reading this post… I think travel exposes you to different cultures where there are different rules, so you get to realize that actually the rules are not universal and they’re all made up. Then they seem silly – one of the main reasons why I love travel! It liberates your mind.
Cath
I was admonished last week in the beautiful Wissahickon woods for having my pointer off-leash by a ridiculous-rule-enforcer. He seemed to be reading from a script, so I’m guessing this is his mission in life – to piss on the enjoyment of dogs. People too. What would Pema Chodron do? Wish them well and wish them away.
Thank You!! We live in Alabama (not Birmingham) where dog parks exist, i am sure, but i have never seen one. We do a similar things with our two large breed dogs. I am the watch out and my husband keeps them entertained in a creek running under a biking trail. I grow tired of these people reminding me that dogs are supposed to be on leashes. They never bother anyone.