18 Obvious Rules That Shouldn't Be Needed, But Are

1. In rehab, our cotton swabs were taken away because a guy decided to jam one into his eardrum to get sent to the hospital and get painkillers.

2. Last year’s company Christmas party email specifically stated to bring an extra pair of pants if you will be urinating in the first pair.

3. For my fellow scientists: Transferring chemicals by mouth (mouth pipetting) is forbidden.

4. “Absolutely no roller skates in the lab” My husband worked for a private lab startup and half the women there did roller derby. The lab was (as many are) a repurposed warehouse with nice smooth concrete floors. One of the women thought it would be fun to skate between machines. She got a lot done but the boss figured osha wouldn’t be too thrilled so the sign went up a few days later.

5. Remove baby before collapsing stroller.

6. Since Covid and things going digital, we now have a ‘You must wear clothes’ rule…and we already had a pretty casual dress code.

7. On an AirFrance flight from Morocco to Mauritania, the flight attendant gave the safety brief in French at first. My french is not good but my ears pricked up when I heard the words “feu de camp.” I obviously discounted my translation as misunderstanding the brief until she went into the brief in English. We were given the standard safety brief on all aircraft, but at the end we were specifically reminded that there are to be no cooking or campfires lit on the plane at any time. Can you imagine your seatmate getting hungry and deciding to start a fire on an airplane to cook up some snacks?!?!?

8. Pharmacy worker here. We have to specify to unwrap suppositories BEFORE insertion. Apparently someone thought the foil was part of it.

9. In my lease, I had a clause to properly dispose of my used tampons. I asked why and apparently my landlord had a tenant that caused $50,000 of damage because she threw her used tampons into the cabinet under the sink. She rented the apartment for years and there were 3+ years worth of used, bloody tampons in there. The, uh, blood caused a bunch of damage akin to water damage to the bathroom. The floor under the cabinet was rotted through. From bloody tampon storage.

10. Used to work in a prison, and they had to ban Marmite spread, because the inmates used the yeast to ferment alcohol, and Kit Kats, because they used the foil wrappers for heroin.

11. My father’s hometown, Marion, Ohio, had a rule that you couldn’t eat a donut while walking backward. If I remember correctly, it had something to do with attracting police horses to lure them away from the police.

12. The ten-bin bowling alley in Geelong* implemented a “Patrons must not play blindfolded” rule. The manager claims it was for safety reasons…

13. “Never iron clothes while they are being worn”.

14. “Do not put 14 rolls of toilet paper in the toilet” -Walmart 2019

15. I had the same Biology professor for Bio I and II. Because of me, the Bio II Powerpoint included a new excuse that wouldn’t be accepted for missing/late work: “My drunk roommates threw it out while cleaning!”

16. We once got a piece of clothing for one of the kids and right on the label, I kid you not “remove child before washing”.

17. When I worked at a warehouse, I was told that we can’t ride pallet jacks like scooters.

18. In Florida ” You may not have sexual relations with a porcupine”.