What rule did your house have
that you thought everybody had?

Every house runs on rules nobody ever wrote down.

Shoes off at the door. Nobody sits in that chair. The good room kept for visitors who never came. You do not arrive anywhere empty-handed. The telly goes off when there is food on the table. Answer the phone properly, in case it is somebody important.

You only found out it was your house and not everybody's when you stayed somewhere else, and watched a family do the whole thing differently without giving it a thought.

Some of them you have kept without ever examining. One or two you still catch yourself enforcing on people who never agreed to them.

So — what rule did your house have that you thought everybody had?