House Rules
Chance House Guidelines
Welcome to Chance, Fire Island's Premier Epicurean Sharehouse Experience! Please review and adhere to the following guidelines to help enhance and maximize your total epicurean pleasure:
Everyone profits from guest fees at Chance. These monies underwrite the ungodly amount of nectar and ambrosia that we all consume. Our guest fee policy is EXTREMELY favorable. It is your responsibility to collect your guest's fees. You will then be billed that amount. Do not send your guest to pay these fees. Just collect them and spare yourself a trip to the ATM. Do not fritter away these monies on champagne and prostitutes. Collecting money is a drag so please do not present your outstanding balance until it is due. Don’t sweat carrying a large balance. It does not mean that you are a deadbeat; rather consider the size of your balance to be a measure of both your popularity and your initiative in helping to underwrite our Falstaffian consumption.
Trading Weekends
House members are free to trade weekends. You may not send someone else in your stead. Not even if that person was to arrive in your own personal, private stead. Don't ask. Please don't. The answer is no.
Guest Fee Shortfall
Every Sunday morning, a sheet detailing the shortfall between our weekend expenses and what we collected in guest fees, including all receipts, is posted. Everyone, including Matt and me, divides this shortfall (last year's average was $29). Everyone pays the same thing, regardless of when you show up, or what you eat or drink. My advice to you? Eat and drink heavily. (If you blow off a scheduled weekend, you will not cover a share of that weekend's shortfall.) Don't be shy about perusing our weekend sheet. The Costco receipt alone can be fun to gawk at. (1 Gallon Chickpeas - $2.39)
Every Wednesday, the whole house will receive an e-mail update. Please read these e-mails, even if you are not scheduled that weekend. Last-minute guesting opportunities may become available and there may be other house news or information about events in the City. If you decide to bag at the last minute, please e-mail and then call the house ASAP in an effort to make beds available for lowly guests.
Where You Sleep
Weekend bed assignments are posted every Friday afternoon near the door. This assignment is not writ in stone nor writ in stucco, even. If you were to end up in a room by yourself, while another house member, in a room with others, forms an association that opens up the possibility of horizontal refreshment, it would be ideal if you--the house member with the room to yourself--would simply offer up your private room to help facilitate the other member's horizontal refreshment. Karmic gods will beam down upon you with luminous rays guaranteed to help facilitate your own horizontal refreshment in the very near future.
Showers/Plumbing
As all Kismet houses have septic tanks, every outdoor shower helps prevent our tank (conveniently located adjacent to the jacuzzi) from rising to the surface, further enhancing and maximizing your total sharehouse experience. For the uninitiated, the outdoor shower is the height of beach refreshment. Please limit your shower, outdoor or otherwise, especially during peak shower times to prevent the hot water from running out. (If you happen to believe that a long, hot shower is your birthright, get in the damn hot tub already.) When showering, you are encouraged to use soap.
Avoid sending any solid food down the drain and please always replace the drain screen in the actual drain of the sink after dumping it out. (Do not just drop it in the sink.) Likewise, throw all tissues and other trash in the trash receptacle. Also, we are a yellow/mellow house. Whenever you take a whiz, just lower the lid when you're done. These saved flushes are most responsible for having kept our septic tank in check since 2005. Having an odor-free jacuzzi session is worth being greeted by the occasional bowl of pee. This is actually considered good luck in North Korea and Wisconsin.
What most trashes the water quality is sunscreen, so please rinse off in the shower first. You don't need to break out the apricot facial scrub--just a once-over will keep it clean for everyone.
Don't touch the "Mode" button on the hot tub. Of course there are lots of other buttons and appendages in the hot tub that should not be touched without permission, however, anyone who touches the "Mode" button should receive the death penalty. If the mode button is lit, the tub will kick into economy mode and the temperature will slowly drop to 71 degrees and will take a couple of hours to get back up to 100.
Put the cover back on the hot tub. In order to keep the water clean and facilitate proper filtration, the only time that the cover should be off is when people are in the tub. NEVER put the cover on the septic tank side of the tub; please only put the cover on the ocean-side of the tub so that it is resting on the wooden platform. Also, don't remove the annoying fucking floating thing. If you take it out of the tub, you will forget to put it back in. I know it sounds CRAZY, but when you're kicking back after a few cocktails with members of the opposite sex in that steamy cauldron of pleasure you can, on occasion, become distracted. This floater dispenses bromide, which prevent "hot tub rash," a nasty, itchy raging situation that will crawl up your inner thighs and later be mistaken for VD by the person with whom you would have otherwise scored horizontal refreshment.
Doors/Windows
Please keep the screen doors closed at all times in a best effort to keep out mosquitoes, beetles and all other subhuman species that are not financially contributing to our house. Close all of the windows. If you are the last to go downstairs at night, please make sure that all of the windows are closed and that the sliding doors are shut in case of night rain. Also turn off all of the lights.
Sheets/Towels
Upon arrival, you'll find a set of clean, folded sheets on your bed. It is a good idea to make your bed as soon as you arrive, so that you can go to sleep when you feel like it, and not wake up your already-sleeping roommate by fumbling with sheets in the dark.
Please strip your beds before leaving.
Please, please fold the blanket and replace it on the foot of the bed before you leave. Please. Thank you.
Pack Your Bags Early
Pack your bag 40 minutes before your boat. This is the single, smartest thing you can do all weekend. This is even smarter than making your bed as soon as you arrive. Why? Because it will prevent you from forgetting your WICKS (Wallet, Ipod, Cellphone/Charger, Keys, Sunglasses.) Once you pack, chillax until taking a liesurely stroll to catch your boat. Or don't do this. Begin packing 15 minutes before your boat leaves, do the Mad Dash up and down the stairs in search of your WICKS (You'll forget precisely one of these items.) rush through your goodbyes and build up a nice sweat during your unplanned cardio in hopes of not missing your boat. This is the absolute worst way to reintegrate yourself to the City, and possibly a sign that you never left it's crazy pace behind in the first place...
Trash
A crack team of Norwegian scientists recently discovered that when the lid on the trash can does not fully close, it is time to take out the trash. Taking out the trash (especially during cooking on Saturday night) is a godly act. It's What Jesus Would Do and it's What Elvis Would Do. Thank You The Management.
Turn off the gas on the grill at the tank.
Yes, checking to see if you've turned off the gas has emerged as the litmus test for obsessive-compulsiveness, however, verging upon a psychological disorder is in the interest of the house.
Music
All house members are encouraged to bring out their MP3s, unless your taste in music thoroughly sucks, in which case you are invited to hum quietly to yourself.
THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT: During dinner, music should be played at a low level. Screaming over music during dinner is barbaric. If you find Jay-Z more compelling than the person sitting next to you, you don't belong in this house. Leave now. Fucking now, dude. Music played during dinner should never have lyrics of any kind unless the person singing them is old enough to remember where they were when they learned of the Kennedy assassination.
The original studio tracks of the following songs are banned and must never be played in the Chance house:
AC/DC -- You Shook Me All Night Long
Bee Gees -- Stayin' Alive
Bob Marley -- All tracks from the "Legend" CD, except for "Redemption Song" and "Exodus."
Jimmy Buffet -- Cheeseburger in Paradise
Jimmy Buffet -- Margaritaville
The Eagles -- Hotel California
Gloria Gaynor, Cake -- I Will Survive
Lynyrd Skynyrd -- Sweet Home Alabama
Sugar Hill Gang -- Rappers Delight
And do I really need to say it? Do I? Do I really need to actually take the time to ban THAT song? I probably should, just to be on the safe side.
Led Zeppelin -- Stairway to Heaven
N.B.: These songs are not just to be avoided when I happen to be around; their refried sound waves should never, ever grace the walls of the Chance house. Ever. The abovementioned songs are not bad--they've just been played a couple of million times too many, or have borne the load of too many commercial jingles. For anyone who might carp that no summer is complete without those cheesy-happy intro tones to "Margaritaville," dare I suggest that you might possibly, if you're really, really lucky, happen to hear the song on another occasion this summer?
It is a great pleasure to be introduced to new music and it was in a beach house that I first listened to Lucinda Williams. I am often vexed by the sheer amount of great music of which I remain ignorant while being regularly subjected to so much aural shit and other songs I have heard too many thousands of times. Spare us. Spare us all. (The A.P. reported that among the arsenal of torture tactics employed in the Abu Ghraib prison, abused Iraqis were regularly subjected to endless loops of "Cheeseburger in Paradise.") Go deep in your collection and bring out that great stuff that no one has ever heard. Please do whatever you can to limit the amount of corporate music played in the house. Instead, introduce something great and underrated.
N.N.B.: This song ban is not a joke; this is a house rule. If you were to mistakenly think it might be funny to make a mixed tape of these songs and then play it in the house, this would go over about as well as you walking into the house with a crack-smoking child under each arm while leading a Pomeranian on a leash, ashing your Camel on the floor. Just don't do it. Please. I'm begging you.
Quiet Time
If a dance party is still raging across the living room at 12:30, it should be transported to the bars or to the beach. If all of the bedroom doors are open and everyone is accounted for, by all means, keep the acoustic jam sessions and table dancing rocking, but if someone wants to sleep after 12:30, they should be able to do so in peace. That doesn't mean that people can't hang out upstairs, it just means that there should be a low level of raucousity.
Likewise, late-night jacuzzi sessions should be mellow. Please bear in mind that the jacuzzi broadcasts your voice or any other noise you make and everyone can hear you at night.
Here is your mantra: Get as drunk as you like only never piss upon your fellow house members. It is also recommended that you not fling your feces at them, either.
IMPORTANT: Conversely, early risers need to TREAD GENTLY in the morning. I know, it's a beautiful day, you're jacked on coffee and want to get your beach on, but if you're rushing about in the morning, you're doing it all wrong and probably waking someone up before they're ready, so please consider the upstairs a monastery fantasy camp until 10:30 a.m.
Kismet Market
The house has an account at the store, good for all weekend purchases. Please don't apply your scribble of a signature to the receipt. Print or sign your name legibly and tuck the slip under a refirgerator magnet. The store account should only be used for when we run out of basics (i.e. milk, eggs, bread) or when particular ingredients (i.e. cilantro) are needed. Please do not spontaneously decide to make something with ingredients that come entirely from the store. Improvisation is a hallmark of any great chef, and if you can't manage to make something divine with the ridiculous array of gourmet food and ingredients in our well-stocked house, drop the whisk and step away from the kitchen. Sometimes, however, especially after engaging in particular homeopathic activities, it is possible to develop an intense fixation for some particular culinary delight, and those desires should be indulged. Nevertheless, if you decide to create a meal that relies primarily on items from the store, please pay cash or shoplift. Sunday night is Clean-Out-the-Fridge Night. Whoever cooks dinner on Sunday, please take inventory of all perishable items and figure out something to cook, MacGyver.
Restrictions
No kids/minors
No dogs
No Creationists
No indoor tobacco smoking
No hard drugs
Weekends cannot be sold or given to others
These restrictions are firm. I really don't care how small or quiet or well-behaved your dog or kid is. I don't care if your dog or kid shits truffles. No dogs or kids. Please don't ask. And don't smoke inside. Smokers, please empty the butt can yourselves, especially on Sunday. And if you would like to smoke a non-tobacco product indoors, please respect the request of any house member that you do it out on the deck. Besides--that's where you can spot all of the purple alligators floating by...
IMPORTANT: If you need clarification on what constitutes a hard drug, they would include coke, heroin and crystal. "No hard drugs" is not a suggestion. Hard drugs have no place at the Chance beach house. If it is discovered that you have brought these substances into the house, you will spontaneously decide to leave Chance to spend more time with your family. Guests who attempt to bring these substances to the house--regardless of the hour--will have a water taxi called for them, at their expense, to take them back to the mainland. I'm sorry I'm not more tolerant about this but I’m not going to apologize for being a hard-line conservative who is tough on crime.
So, that's it. Thank you for reading all the way to the end. The end. That's it. Now stop reading. Jesus. I mean, Elvis...