Spread the Word: Vacation Code of Conduct
The Emily Post and Miss Manners of newsletters is a stickler for these rules of engagement.
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Spreadrules Squad,
We spent hours this week committing to memory Chelsea Handler’s EPIC list of rules—an etiquette guide for the ages she created to keep a passel of nieces and nephews in line when she treats them to luxury vacations all over the world. At first, we wondered if outing her own flesh and blood as a bunch of rude, ungrateful bozos had permanently imploded those relationships. Then we realized this is something Handler reposts annually, in honor of family-vacation season, that originated in her 2025 book, I’ll Have What She’s Having. So presumably the Handler family has worked through it. Or it’s just that these trips are so good, they’re worth the occasional public flogging on the world stage so your famous aunt can keep her followers fed. Anyway, while some of Chelsea’s rules can’t be topped—for obvious reasons, we’re partial to “you cannot speak to your mothers the way that you do”—there are a few that we had difficulty relating to, particularly those pertaining to humane treatment of household staff.
We thought we’d create a list of our own: 20 tenets, geared not so much toward millionaires whisking extended family off to Majorca than toward hardworking, unstaffed Spreaders sharing Airbnbs with toddlers, teens, in-laws, and assorted “friends.” (To be clear, we know that suffering through sandy toes and stinky towels are Champagne—er, prosecco—problems.) With Rachel soaking up the Cape Charles sun this week and Maggie soon off for a heavily SPF’d stay on Block Island, we polled a handful of loyal Spreaders for their vacation pet peeves. Help us help you help everyone enjoy this “vacation”!
Also, if you ever needed irrefutable proof that you have, in fact, turned into your mother: Here it is.
The Spread Rules of Engagement for Family and/or Shared Vacations
20. Hang up that soggy towel—you’ll be using it all week. And do it right: A lump on the line does not dry.
19. Kids, do not claim all the best seating—especially the corner seats in the sectional—leaving the adults nowhere to sit.
18. Do not leave a roll of toilet paper with one tiny square. Do not leave ¼ inch of coffee in the pot for the next person. Be a human being.
17. After we ask you to make a packing list so you don’t forget anything and you don’t and you therefore forget many things, do not take the [charger/contact lens solution/toothpaste/hairbrush/fill-in-the-blank] that we did remember to your room and not return it.
16. Do not kick off your shoes right inside the door where everyone who walks in will trip over them. (Adults: Specify a place for shoes upon arrival.)
15. Put the key back on the hook. Put the remote back on the coffee table. Put your skateboard back in the garage (not, say, right behind our car where we will drive over it and possibly you).
14. Adults are not your sherpas. Everyone shall carry something to and from the car—and not just your own (soggy, sandy) towel.
13. If you haven’t washed the sand off your feet, we will be able to see the sand on your feet. Wash your feet and tell the truth.
12. There will be walking. If you are young and strong, just walk. No commentary.
11. Do not groan EVERY time it’s time for sunscreen. We like putting it on you even less than you like having it done. Can we all just grin and bear it?
10. No wet or sandy hands in the chip bag! Also: Close that snack bag/box/container. Friends don’t make friends eat mushy Oreos.
9. If you didn’t cook it, don’t critique it.
8. Under 21s: Don’t expect a $13 mocktail just because we’re ordering ourselves a $16 cocktail. Similarly, people of any age but particularly children should not ask for $8 drinks every time we buy ourselves a $3 iced coffee.
7. Do not demand spending money if we already gave you spending money. Also: Do not “demand,” period.
6. Please don’t watch that iPad without headphones. Even if you think we can’t hear it, we can. We hear everything.
5. If you break something, the correct first response is, “I’m sorry.” Not: “I am pretty sure it was like that.”
4. We love you but please do not talk at us when you can plainly see that we have not had our coffee yet.
3. One-size-fits-all rarely looks good on anyone. Some people are indoor cats, others beach bums, others want to rent bikes and adventure. Normalize not being together 24-7.
2. Do not leave your furry hair ties, soggy underpants, and other detritus in the shower.
And the number one Spread rule for family or shared vacations—a classic that our parents said to us, and that your kids will say to their kids one day:
Do not say, “I’m bored.”
Together we can be the change. Or at least commiserate about the fact that nothing is ever going to change but at least in a month everybody will be back in school.
Cheers!
Rachel & Maggie
P.S. On a more positive note, we also gleaned some strong survival tips in our research:
Always have an ABCD (after beach cold drink) waiting for the drive home. Who doesn’t like everyone better after a cold, fruity post-beach sip?
For rainy days, pack an over-the-door Nerf basketball net—to be put up on a hostess-approved door and used only during waking hours.
Remember, when you need to get away from your getaway, there is always the Spread!
On that note, on to this week’s reads!
Ripping off the emotional estrogen patch. Doctor/journalist Keren Landman attempted to push back on the growing fantasy that MHT (no longer known as HRT, get with the program!) is a wonder cure for, well, everything—as well as a potent symbol of autonomy and control for women in a world gone wobbly. The hordes were not thrilled, to the point that the Vagenda’s Dr. Jen Gunter stepped in to back Landman up: Like it or not, the only real proven benefits of hormone therapy are relief of hot flashes and night sweats, while keeping your bones from disintegrating. All very good things. But not quite the fountain of youth we’d like to believe. Read the perfectly reasonable story that started the kerfuffle here.
Naked and Unafraid: Firebrand writer Lauren Oyler profiles firebrand artist Florentina Holzinger in the New Yorker, and we gotta say: well matched! One scholar describes Holzinger’s work as “feminist decadence.” She’s buck naked a lot of the time, and almost everyone in her shows is, too, including opera singers, elderly women, and performers with disabilities—expanding our ideas about what bodies are allowed to do onstage. Her opera “SANCTA” (2024) featured nude roller-skating nuns, unsimulated sex, and a scene where someone sticks a finger into an open wound. The scene was so graphic, one viewer—a violinist—fainted, breaking both his nose and his instrument. Read it here.
