House Rules

Jay McAdams
3 min readDec 20, 2019

Because the House Rules seemed to work so swimmingly in the Impeachment hearings, I decided to try to institute them at my house. After all, these rules go back to the framers. They’re tried and true for centuries. Why wouldn’t we all be using them in our houses?

So when my wife called me to come in from my gardening because she just thought of something she wanted to tell me and it couldn’t wait, I replied “For what purpose does the gentlelady from California seek recognition?” Turns out, that didn’t go over very well. But because these rules worked so well during the hearings, I didn’t give up.

In fact, the next time I added props. I bought a gavel on amazon for less than $20 and brought it into the kitchen for when she criticizes me for not washing all of the silverware when I do the dishes. So when she began her attack, I turned and said “Point of order! Point of order!” as I brandished my gavel with my sudsy hands. She, in return, opened a drawer and without a single word pulled out a meat tenderizer and proceeded to gavel a chicken breast into a pancake with 4 loud whacks that made the dog hide under the table. I dried my hands on the dish towel and quietly retreated to the den.

I was pretty sure this one would work, because of the double entendre. When I’m driving and she always tells me to slow down or to watch out for that car over there, I would simply say “Will the gentlelady yield?”, a little driving joke. But when she did it and I used that line straight from the House of Representatives, it landed with such a loud thud that…

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Jay McAdams

Jay is an LA-based writer and theatre artist writing about the absurdity of everyday life in the 21st century.