House Rules Read Online Free PDF
Author: Jodi Picoult
takes a bite of my food, I have to cut off the part that his/her saliva has touched before I can eat any more of it.
7. Loose hair. It freaks me out, which is why mine is military short.
8. Being touched by someone I don‘t know.
9. Foods with membranes, like custards; or foods that explode in your mouth, like peas.
10. Even numbers.
11. When people call me retarded, which I am not.
12. The color orange. It means danger, and there‘s no rhyme for it in English, which makes it suspicious. (Theo wants to know why I can tolerate things that are silver, then, but I won‘t even rise to the argument.)
I have spent much of my eighteen years learning how to exist in a world that is occasionally orange, chaotic, and too loud. In between classes, for example, I wear headphones. I used to wear this great pair that made me look like an air traffic controller, but Theo said everyone made fun of me when they saw me in the halls, so my mother convinced me to use earbuds instead. I hardly ever go to the cafeteria, because (a) there‘s no one for me to sit with and (b) all those conversations crossing each other feel like knives on my skin. Instead, I hang out in the teachers‘ room, where if I happen to mention that Pythagoras did not really discover the Pythagorean theorem (the Babylonians used it thousands of years before Pythagoras was even a seductive gleam in his Grecian parents‘ eyes), they do not look at me as if I have grown a second head. If things get really bad, pressure helps like lying under a pile of laundry or a weighted blanket (a blanket with little poly pellets inside that make it heavier) because the deep touch sensory stimulation calms me down. One of my therapists, a Skinner aficionado, got me to relax to Bob Marley songs. When I get upset, I repeat words over and over and talk in a flat voice. I close my eyes and ask myself, What would Dr. Henry Lee do?
I don‘t get into trouble because rules are what keep me sane. Rules mean that the day is going to go exactly the way I am predicting it to be. I do what I‘m told; I just wish everyone else would do it, too.
We have rules in our house:
1. Clean up your own messes.
2. Tell the truth.
3. Brush your teeth twice a day.
4. Don‘t be late for school.
5. Take care of your brother; he‘s the only one you‘ve got.
The majority of these rules come naturally to me well, except for brushing my teeth, which I hate doing, and taking care of Theo. Let‘s just say my interpretation of rule number 5 doesn‘t always synchronize with Theo‘s interpretation. Take today, for example. I included him in a starring role in my crime scene, and he got furious. He was cast as the perpetrator … how could he not see that as the highest form of flattery?
* * *
My psychiatrist, Dr. Moon Murano, often asks me to rate anxiety-producing situations on a scale of one to ten.
CASE IN POINT 3
Me: My mom went out to the bank and said she was going to be back in fifteen minutes and when it got to seventeen minutes, I started to panic. And then when I called her, she didn‘t pick up on her cell, and I was sure she was lying dead in a ditch somewhere.
Dr. Moon: On a scale of one to ten, how did that make you feel?
Me: A nine.
(Note: It was really a ten, but that‘s an even number, and saying it out loud would make my anxiety level blow off the chart.)
Dr. Moon: Can you think of a solution that might have worked better than calling 911?
Me (doing my best Cher from Moonstruck impression): Snap out of it!
I rate my days, too, although I haven‘t told this to Dr. Moon yet. High numbers are good days; low numbers are bad days. And today is a one, between my fight with Theo and then the absence of the Free Sample Lady at the grocery store. (In my defense, I have worked out an algorithm to predict what she‘s going to serve, and maybe I wouldn‘t have been upset if it was the first Saturday of the month, when she hands out vegetarian items. But today was a dessert day, for
7. Loose hair. It freaks me out, which is why mine is military short.
8. Being touched by someone I don‘t know.
9. Foods with membranes, like custards; or foods that explode in your mouth, like peas.
10. Even numbers.
11. When people call me retarded, which I am not.
12. The color orange. It means danger, and there‘s no rhyme for it in English, which makes it suspicious. (Theo wants to know why I can tolerate things that are silver, then, but I won‘t even rise to the argument.)
I have spent much of my eighteen years learning how to exist in a world that is occasionally orange, chaotic, and too loud. In between classes, for example, I wear headphones. I used to wear this great pair that made me look like an air traffic controller, but Theo said everyone made fun of me when they saw me in the halls, so my mother convinced me to use earbuds instead. I hardly ever go to the cafeteria, because (a) there‘s no one for me to sit with and (b) all those conversations crossing each other feel like knives on my skin. Instead, I hang out in the teachers‘ room, where if I happen to mention that Pythagoras did not really discover the Pythagorean theorem (the Babylonians used it thousands of years before Pythagoras was even a seductive gleam in his Grecian parents‘ eyes), they do not look at me as if I have grown a second head. If things get really bad, pressure helps like lying under a pile of laundry or a weighted blanket (a blanket with little poly pellets inside that make it heavier) because the deep touch sensory stimulation calms me down. One of my therapists, a Skinner aficionado, got me to relax to Bob Marley songs. When I get upset, I repeat words over and over and talk in a flat voice. I close my eyes and ask myself, What would Dr. Henry Lee do?
I don‘t get into trouble because rules are what keep me sane. Rules mean that the day is going to go exactly the way I am predicting it to be. I do what I‘m told; I just wish everyone else would do it, too.
We have rules in our house:
1. Clean up your own messes.
2. Tell the truth.
3. Brush your teeth twice a day.
4. Don‘t be late for school.
5. Take care of your brother; he‘s the only one you‘ve got.
The majority of these rules come naturally to me well, except for brushing my teeth, which I hate doing, and taking care of Theo. Let‘s just say my interpretation of rule number 5 doesn‘t always synchronize with Theo‘s interpretation. Take today, for example. I included him in a starring role in my crime scene, and he got furious. He was cast as the perpetrator … how could he not see that as the highest form of flattery?
* * *
My psychiatrist, Dr. Moon Murano, often asks me to rate anxiety-producing situations on a scale of one to ten.
CASE IN POINT 3
Me: My mom went out to the bank and said she was going to be back in fifteen minutes and when it got to seventeen minutes, I started to panic. And then when I called her, she didn‘t pick up on her cell, and I was sure she was lying dead in a ditch somewhere.
Dr. Moon: On a scale of one to ten, how did that make you feel?
Me: A nine.
(Note: It was really a ten, but that‘s an even number, and saying it out loud would make my anxiety level blow off the chart.)
Dr. Moon: Can you think of a solution that might have worked better than calling 911?
Me (doing my best Cher from Moonstruck impression): Snap out of it!
I rate my days, too, although I haven‘t told this to Dr. Moon yet. High numbers are good days; low numbers are bad days. And today is a one, between my fight with Theo and then the absence of the Free Sample Lady at the grocery store. (In my defense, I have worked out an algorithm to predict what she‘s going to serve, and maybe I wouldn‘t have been upset if it was the first Saturday of the month, when she hands out vegetarian items. But today was a dessert day, for