While the sink filled with water, I went over the rules in my head:

First, wash the mugs and cups, then the silverware, followed by the bowls and plates, and finally the pots and pans.

I know about the rules because way back before I was married, a guy at work told me. He knew because he was a husband.

His wife explained it to him.

“See, you have to wash the stuff that directly touches your lips and tongue in the cleanest water, then work backward until you get to the pots and pans. Your water ought to be pretty gnarly by then, but it won’t matter because you don’t lick the pans.”

I dropped some coins into the lunchroom vending machine. “You don’t?”

“Of course not. Are you uncivilized?”

I unwrapped my Snickers bar. “Nope. I’m single.”

“Like I said…”

I pondered this information while I chewed.

Personally, I favored paper plates, plastic forks and bags from the drive-through. It kept my sink spotless.

Like I said, I’d yet to be civilized by marriage.

“So,” I asked, “what did you teach her?”

This startled my buddy. “Teach her? You really haven’t been married, have you? She isn’t interested in learning anything from me. She prefers being in a supervisory capacity.”

“You don’t get to tell her anything?”

“Are you crazy?” He glanced around like he expected her to pop up from behind the vending machines. “Even if she’s never done a thing herself, she knows better than I do how to do it. I know because she told me so.”

I didn’t understand this until a couple of years later when I entered into holy deadlock. In short order, I discovered that I indeed had plates, bowls, cups and silverware. I also learned that these items were to be used at meals — which no longer came neither from drive-throughs nor vending machines — and must be washed every evening in an order prescribed by my wife.

Unlike my buddy, by the time I got to the pots and pans, I was prohibited from using the gnarly water. I had to draw a fresh sink full of scalding water — with dish soap.

“Clean water. Does this mean I have to start over with cups and silverware?”

“Not if you did them right the first time.”

We also had different definitions of doing something “right the first time.”

My late wife imparted many rules and regulations to me before she passed two years ago — how to vacuum a floor (hint: apparently, you’re supposed to move the furniture, not swish around it), how long to bake cookies (honest, in all the years I at raw cookie dough, never once did I die of salmonella poisoning) and the correct way to fold my boxer shorts so that they fit best in the chest of drawers (oh, c’mon!).

Then it happened. One day she asked if I could teach her how to change a tire. I barely could do so myself, but being a guy, I never let a little thing like that stop me. I grabbed the lug wrench, jacked up the car, and class was in session.

She never looked cuter than she did with a dab of grease on the tip of her nose.

“You didn’t have to dab my nose,” she said.

“It’s in the rules,” I said. “Auto repairs are not official until one sports either new oil stains or grease splotches.”

It was a wonderful thing to report to my work buddy, that I showed my wife how to change a tire.

He shrugged. “Mine taught me that.”

“Really?”

“Yep. She taught me that I could change tires — hers and mine. And the oil, too. But I better wash my hands thoroughly before I draw the dish water. She doesn’t care for coffee that tastes like motor oil.”

“Of course,” I said. “To do otherwise would be uncivilized.”

Teach Burt more rules of the house at burton.w.cole@gmail.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.