Rules, Rules, Rules

There are so many rules to follow!  I am not just talking about the simple ones, like saying please and thank you, holding doors open for ladies and older people, chewing food with your mouth closed, not talking with your mouth full.  There are a million of those!  Life is hard enough just making sure you even partially remember them.  It seems like I am always handing someone something and saying “What do you say?”  The grandchildren who are two and five are better at remembering than the twenty-somethings.
So, one of the new rules that I have been working on with the grandkids is respect and obedience for the adults.  That is a tough one, especially when the adult is a total idiot who doesn’t deserve respect.  Then you have to qualify things by saying, not all adults are good people and there are “bad guy” adults that you should never listen to.  It is confusing for me as an adult; I can’t imagine what the kids think.
We have always taught the kids to tell the truth.  You may get into trouble still, but tell the truth. So I lied.  I bought the kids goldfish because their new baby brother was born.  Somewhere there is logical reasoning in that, and I will let you know when I figure it out.  My kids thought I was nuts.  In fact, Pook warned me about how many replacements I would be buying.  Well, we didn’t last 24 hours.  I went to the pet store to buy a new goldfish and promptly found out that it was way different than I remember.  You used to throw a ping pong ball in a bowl and win a fish.  How tough could this be?!  Apparently, pretty tough.  These things require extra air and filters and special food! Forget it! 
I could by Betas and they don’t need the extra stuff.  Of course, they can’t eat goldfish food, so I did have to get special food, but I didn’t get the really special vitamin enriched food.  But, I did purchase two fish, not orange but red.  I got two figuring Goldfish #2 would only last another day, and I figured I would tell the kids that they got sunburned and that would explain the color change!  The five year old is too smart!  “This fish looks different!  It is smaller!”  “No it isn’t, it is just the way the glass bowl is making it look.” “Nana, the tail is different.”   “Well, fish change as they get older just like children do.”  “Why is the fish food different?”  “Well, the pet store said this was better for them.” 
You have to be quick to stay ahead of them!  I think God will forgive my little white lies, considering the situational ethics involved.  Who wants a child’s heart broken?  Please don’t tell!