Rule One:

If you pull into my driveway and honk you'd better be delivering a package, because you're sure not picking anything up.

Rule Two:

You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter's body, I will remove them.

Rule Three:

I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips.  Please don't take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose this compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object. However, in order to ensure that your clothes do not, in fact, come off during the course of your date with my daughter, I will take my electric nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.

Rule Four:

I'm sure you've been told that in today's world, sex without utilizing a "barrier method" of some kind can kill you. Let me elaborate, when it comes to sex, I am the barrier, and I will kill you.

Rule Five:

It is usually understood that in order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day. Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need from you on this subject is "early."

Rule Six:

I have no doubt you are a popular fellow, with many opportunities to date other girls. This is fine with me as long as it is okay with my daughter.  Otherwise, once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date no one but her until she is finished with you. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.

Rule Seven:

As you stand in my front hallway, waiting for my daughter to appear, and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for the movie, you should not be dating. My daughter is putting on her makeup, a process that can take longer than painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of just standing there, why don't you do something useful, like changing the oil in my car?

Rule Eight:

The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter:

Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden stool.

Places where there are no parents, policemen, or nuns within eyesight.

Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to induce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose down parka - zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual theme are to be avoided; movies which features chain saws are okay. Hockey games are okay. Old folks homes are better.

Rule Nine:

Do not lie to me. I may appear to be a potbellied, middle-aged, dimwitted has-been. But on issues relating to my daughter, I am the all-knowing, merciless god of your universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have one chance to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Do not trifle with me.

Rule Ten:

Be afraid. Be very afraid. It takes very little for me to mistake the sound of your car in the driveway for a chopper coming in over a rice paddy near Hanoi. When my Agent Orange starts acting up, the voices in my head frequently tell me to clean the guns as I wait for you to bring my daughter home. As soon as you pull into the driveway you should exit your car with both hands in plain sight. Speak the perimeter password, announce in a clear voice that you have brought my daughter home safely and early, then return to your car - there is no need for you to come inside. The camouflaged face at the window is mine.

When his .38-calibre revolver failed to fire at its intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder: he peered down the barrel and tried the trigger
again. Happily for most concerned, this time it worked.

The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat-cutting machine and, after a little peremptory hopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company, suspecting negligence, sent out one of its
men to have a look. He tried the machine out and lost a finger. The chef's claim was approved.

Surprised while burgling a house in Antwerp, Belgium, a thief fled out the back door, clambered over a nine-foot wall, dropped down the other side, and found himself in the city prison.

In Bermuda in 1975 a man on a motor scooter was knocked down and killed by a taxi. Exactly a year earlier the same driver in the same taxi, carrying the same passenger, had knocked down and killed the motor-scooter rider's brother, on the same street, riding the same scooter.

An American tourist in South America had the decidedly grave misfortune to be attacked by Killer bees as he stood on the bank of the Amazon.  Seeking refuge, he leaped into the river and was devoured by piranha fish.

A Malaysian monkey that had been trained to gather coconuts from trees demonstrated a pressing need for a refresher course when it leaped onto the shoulders of a passer-by in Kuala Lumpur and tried to twist his head off. The passer-by was treated at a local hospital for a sprained neck.

In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a sixteen-year-old youth was charged with beating up his fifteen-year-old wife after the latter hid the caps to his toy pistol.

A man who shovelled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her dead.

After shooting and wounding his wife and young son, Louis Pilar of Rheims, France, told police that a three-week strike by television technicians was to blame. 'There was nothing to look at,' he explained, 'and I was bored.
Fortunately his wife did not seem to mind being shot at. From her hospital bed she said: 'I don't blame my husband. It really was very boring in the evenings.'