Someone needs to be in charge of restocking paper products in your house. In our family, it's me.

Every house has a variety of jobs, big and small, that over time fall on the shoulders of one occupant or another. As comedian Paul Reiser once observed, these are often jobs that nobody especially likes, but one of you happens to hate it a little less than the other, so the job goes to that person.

Among my many assigned duties at 30025 Miller Avenue are two tasks I take seriously. They are in no way onerous, and I actually enjoy them both.

One is changing the clocks twice a year whenever Daylight Savings Time begins or ends. With so many of our time-keeping devices now fully digital, this isn't nearly the job it used to be, but there are still clocks that need to be manually adjusted (the stove, the microwave, the coffeemaker, Terry and Jack's cars, etc.)

The other is making sure we have paper towels in the kitchen and plenty of toilet paper in each of our bathrooms.

Ideally, you should never get to the empty cardboard tube inside the paper towels or a roll of toilet paper without a replacement readily at hand.

Thus, I'm always glancing into the kitchen and various bathrooms to gauge current supply levels and the precise moment when I will need to go to our basement storage room to procure fresh stocks.

Running out of paper towels isn't a national emergency or anything, just inconvenient.

But running out of toilet paper when it's urgently needed? That simply cannot happen.

And it rarely does, though I will admit there have been times when I haven't been quick enough with reinforcements and someone will yell for help from the bathroom.

I would submit that, if you're planning to do something in the bathroom that will require toilet paper, you should first determine if there is sufficient paper on hand before you begin. But I know that sometimes you're simply in a hurry.

Overall, though, I am probably the best choice in our family for this job, as I am detail-oriented and generally very conscientious, even when it comes to things about which you probably don't need to be especially conscientious.

No one appreciates the toilet paper guy until they're in desperate need. Then, and only then, he becomes the most important person in the house.

Who do you want to die first: You or your spouse?

No, really, I'm asking this seriously. Would you rather die first? Or would you rather that your husband/wife die first?

And don't do that noble "Oh, I would willingly sacrifice myself so that my spouse could live on" thing. I want a straight answer: Deep down, if you could make the choice and no one would know, would you choose to live longer yourself? Or would you let your significant other carry on while you're six feet under?

Short of homicide, none of us has a say in the matter, of course. And statistics tell us that in the majority of cases, the wife lives longer than the husband, since women tend to outlive men.

But if you had to decide, what are you going with?

If you say you would rather live longer, there are some pros and cons to consider:

PROS
The most obvious one, duh, is that you get to live longer. That falls right in line with natural survival instincts. Also, all those years of waking up cold because your spouse pulled the covers off you? Gone. You can now spend the remainder of your days (or nights, I guess) in toasty warm comfort. You're also a Committee of One when it comes to making such important decisions as what movie to watch on Friday night or how to hang the toilet paper (NOTE: It should definitely be "over" and not "under.")

CONS
Well, let's be serious here. You're going to be awfully lonely if you're the only one left. I watched my mom make a series of painful life adjustments after my dad died 15 years ago, and I give her credit for doing it as well as she did. I'm not sure I could handle it. Also, all of the chores the other person always did – which they probably took over because you hated those jobs so much – are suddenly your responsibility. It's something to think about.

There's also this complicating factor: If you decide you want to be the one to go first, that means you're purposely saddling your spouse with all of the "cons" listed above. Nice going. You just made their Life After You even MORE miserable.

I've always joked with Terry that, given my family history of heart disease, this isn't even a question for us. I'll be dead and buried and she'll still have 20 or 30 good years in front of her. But if I had to choose? Wow....I don't know. I guess I would still choose to die first.

NOTE TO TERRY: When I'm gone and you have to take over cleaning the cat litter boxes, you should remember to always keep at least 3 inches of litter in each box. Otherwise those balls of smelly cat urine tend to stick to the plastic and are hard to scrape off. You're welcome.

Here are the new rules...please follow them

You're probably not aware of this, but I have been elected Household Living Czar of the United States. You don't need to concern yourself with how this came to pass. Suffice it to say that I have been invested with the power to dictate certain rules and regulations governing the way Americans should live their daily lives.

Henceforth, the following decrees shall be in effect for all citizens of this great nation (NOTE TO KERRI JONES: Please feel free to adopt these in Australia as you see fit):

1. Toilet paper shall be hung OVER, not under: There will be no exceptions to this rule. How this "under" nonsense even got started is beyond me. Violators will be sentenced to watching a three-day, nonstop "Jersey Shore" marathon.

2. Fathers will cast the tiebreaking vote when the family reaches an impasse in movie selection: Family Movie Nights are ruined when you can't come to some agreement on which movie to watch. Much like the Vice President in the Senate, the father now has authority to break the tie and make the final choice. End of story. If you don't like what Dad picks, your only other option is to go and clean one of the bathrooms in the house (Mom will select which bathroom).

3. If something doesn't fit into the cupboard, take the time to make it fit: We keep our cereal in a cabinet over the stove. The way we have this cabinet set up, you can comfortably store three, maybe four boxes of cereal. Oftentimes, some denizens of the house who shall remain nameless but are NOT me or my wife will try to jam in a fifth or even sixth box of cereal. They are satisfied if the extra box stays up there without falling back out, even if it means that it's protruding six inches out of the cabinet and the door won't close. This is unacceptable. It is beyond unacceptable. Either rearrange the contents of the cabinet such that your cereal will fit in there, or take the unnecessary box out and put it back into the basement. One or the other. Penalty for failure to comply is that we'll stuff YOU into the cereal cabinet.

4. Water stays in the shower or gets cleaned up: This isn't difficult. If you take a shower and water somehow gets onto the bathroom floor, clean it up. And then pick the wet towels up off the floor and dispose of them properly. That's it. That's all you have to do. I can draw you a diagram with detailed instructions, if it will help.

5. Turn the lights off. Turn the lights off! TURN THE LIGHTS OFF!: My children are quite clearly aware that light switches can be used to illuminate a room. Just flip the switch up and, presto, you have light! It's really quite the invention. But I have failed to teach them that the switch is, in fact, bidirectional. If you push it down, the lights go off. Amazing, I know! As far as my kids know, a light switch only needs to be used once, and then you should keep it on forever.

6. All family members must learn the function of coat hooks: When we added a mud room onto our house, we had these really nice cubbies and coat hooks installed to store everyone's jackets, shoes, school supplies, etc. In an attempt not to wear the coat hooks out, apparently, certain members of my family elect not to use them, opting instead for the increasingly popular Throw It On the Floor method of garment storage. No. Just, no.

7. Everyone is to gain an understanding of how refrigerators work: Two important things to remember - (a) The refrigerator does not spontaneously produce food every time you open the door. What was in there five minutes ago is what's in there now. No need to check again. (b) The refrigerator refrigerates food. That means it keeps it cold. It operates much more efficiently when the refrigerator door is in the closed position and the cold air inside is not allowed to escape. A minor and perhaps obvious point, but one that still clearly needs to be made in 95% of American households.

8. Practice the basic elements of HVAC economics: Why yes, I suppose we COULD turn on the central air since you're feeling a touch warm. OR....and I know this is crazy....you could simply open a window, which as it turns out is free. Or change into a short-sleeved shirt (also free). The air conditioning system, sadly, is not free. "Free" always trumps "not free."

9. I don't need to see your used toothpaste: You're brushing your teeth. That's good. Over the years I think we've managed to buy our kids' dentist a boat and two summer homes on Cape Cod. But when you're finished brushing, the idea is to spit the toothpaste into the sink and make sure every molecule of it goes down the drain. If you simply spit randomly into the sink and walk away, the next morning there will be a wall of disgusting dried toothpaste in the sink. And nobody wants to see that. Not even me, the guy who cleaned a variety of horrible bodily emissions off of you for the first 2-3 years of your life.

10. If you ask for it, eat it: "Mommy, can I have some pancakes?" "Sure, honey. I'll get you some." Mommy fixes the pancakes and serves them to the requesting child. "There you go, three pancakes just the way you like them!" "Oh. Uh, I don't think I really want them. I guess I'm not as hungry as I thought." Five minutes later, Mommy is flipping through the Yellow Pages looking for an attorney to represent her in her upcoming trial for assault and battery on a minor.

An announcement, plus four random thoughts

I've very much enjoyed doing this whole blog thing over the past 3 1/2 weeks. I hadn't maintained a blog in years, and I forgot how much fun it could be interacting with readers.

But here's the thing: Time management is an issue here. In order to maintain an updated-every-24-hours sort of blog, I have to purposely carve out time in my daily schedule to write, and that's not something I think I can do long term...or maybe I'm just not willing to do it.

In any case, the effect is the same. But I want to keep the blog going. So I think the best compromise will be to post once a week. That I can handle. Is everyone cool with that? I still have it set up so that new entries will be automatically posted on Facebook and Twitter, so if you're interested in reading, the links will be there. Or, as always, you're welcome to visit www.theystillcallmedaddy.com whenever you'd like to check for new posts and/or browse old ones.

OK? OK.

Four things that may be of interest only to me:

1. I like jazz music. Love listening to Coltrane, Miles Davis, Branford Marsalis, Louis Armstrong, etc. But apparently being a jazz lover means having to adopt the jazz language. Talking to jazz devotees entails referring to other guys as "cats," and to any particular piece of music you like as "a gas." I read Downbeat magazine -- the unofficial jazz Bible for decades -- and suddenly I feel like Fred Flintstone in that episode where he became "HiFi," the hipster.
2. Toilet paper should be hung so the paper goes over the top, rather than coming out from underneath the roll. Why are we even debating this in the 21st century?
3. Why must some people with whom I grew up here in Cleveland and who later moved away to warmer climates feel so smug and self-righteous when the snow arrives in Northeast Ohio? Like they figured out some incredible secret ("Wait, what if I move to Florida? Then I don't have to deal with the cold weather. I'm a genius!")  while the rest of us are sitting here winter after winter wondering how we could possibly escape. News flash: I like living here. I choose to live here. The fact that you're a snow wuss in no way reflects on me. I should note that this only applies to a small/select group of annoying people, not to the likes of Kevin Buchheit and most of my other desert and tropical friends.
4. The other day I installed a new battery in my car AND went out and bought and installed a new fuse that was needed for it. I'm still walking around like I'm Mr. Goodwrench.