MARK MY WORD: ON THE ROAD OF LIFE, IT'S TOUGH TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THE RULES

Keep Out.

The words shout at you in big, black letters on a piece of paper taped to Becca's bedroom door.

Those aren't the only words taped on her door. She has a ton of them, all part of her rules that have turned our 7-year-old's doorway into Checkpoint Charlie.

"Rules of My Room," one sign reads in the scrawled handwriting of youth. Beside that sign are seven rules: No Eating, Keep Out, Clean Up Your Room, My Room, No Chewing, Everyone, And My Password is Beanies.

"Clean up your mess," "no eating" and "keep out" are repeated in other signs on the door for good measure. There's even a sign-up sheet for those brave enough to venture beyond the door.

She has been known to make her friends sign in when they come over to play. Becca clearly seems to have mastered the art of paperwork even better than the Internal Revenue Service.

I'm just glad the room doesn't have double doors or I'd have to take a speed-reading course just so I could read all the rules before bedtime.

Joni has refused to sign in, but I signed in once. I figure Becca deserved some credit for coming up with all those rules. I just hope she doesn't grow up to become a government bureaucrat.

Joni and I do our best to respect Becca's space. But as long as we're paying the bills, Becca's space isn't truly sovereign. We regularly move in for a closer inspection.

The interesting thing about all those rules is that Becca routinely violates them like lawmakers who want one rule for themselves and another for everyone else.

The sign says, "no chewing," but I often find her eating candy, chips and other assorted munchies in her room. She also has posted a sign that bans toys from her room. But the ban is never enforced. I regularly find toys on the floor and on top of her bed and her desk.

I've also yet to hear anyone utter the "Beanies" password. The admonition that people should clean up their mess doesn't seem to apply to Becca.

Her room is constantly under siege from discarded clothes, shoes, books, Barbies and other untidy terrors.

Perhaps she just can't keep track of all the rules. Besides, as any bureaucrat will tell you, it's easier to write the rules than enforce them.

The biggest prohibition seems to be an unnamed, yet explicitly clear one -- Little sister, stay out.

Becca continually banishes 3-year-old, Bailey, from the room. Like an exclamation point, the door slams shut.

"Don't slam the door on your sister," I shout from the dining room.

Meanwhile, Bailey is crying. "She won't let me in," she moans about her sister.

With a little parental soothing, Bailey soon finds something else to do, away from the ruled-off room.

Before long, Becca usually has reopened the door to company. As Becca has learned, it's tough to be the gatekeeper if no one wants in.

Sometimes, there are just too many rules blocking the doorway of life. But other times, we wish there were a few more rules.

Take vehicles, for example. There should be a rule prohibiting two tires from going flat on the same vehicle in the middle of the night after your favorite college basketball team has just lost to its hated rival.

But there I was Thursday night, stranded with six friends in Mayfield, Ky., after the van we had been riding in was struck with two flats. Talk about blowouts. This was worse than the basketball game in which the maddening Murray State Racers defeated Southeast Missouri State University's Indians on Murray's home court.

We had envisioned it as a great road trip, an evening out with the guys. But we never expected to be stuck with two flats. The government only requires automakers to give you one spare and that's just a midget tire.

Thankfully, we managed to locate a wrecker service, a 24-hour discount store and a tire repair kit. We also managed to endure rain, sleet, snow and dropping temperatures during our three-hour pit stop in Mayfield that was made easier by the fact that most of us took refuge in a motel lobby. Two of our group, including the driver of the van, braved the bad weather to get us back on the road.

In the end, we managed to get back on the road. We rolled along on one repaired tired and a spare. We managed to make it back to Cape Girardeau around 3:30 a.m. Friday.

Perhaps next time, we need more rules for road trips. An outright ban on bad luck would be nice. Then, we wouldn't need all those other rules -- like the ones posted on Becca's door.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.