Valentine’s Day Special: Michael and Beth’s SOPs

February 14, 2009 By 8 Comments

Those of you with any military background will be familiar with the concept of an SOP (aka Standard Operating Proceedure). Wikipedia defines an SOP as:

a set of instructions having the force of a directive, covering those features of operations that lend themselves to a definite or standardized procedure without loss of effectiveness. Standard Operating Policies and Procedures can be effective catalysts to drive performance improvement and improving organizational results. Every good quality system is based on its standard operating procedures (SOPs).

While it’s common practice to apply an SOP to a military system, during our 3.58 years of marriage, Beth and I have also discovered that SOPs are good for our relationship. Therefore, in honor of Valentine’s Day, Beth and I are sharing some of our many SOPs that we have helped one another discover during our time as husband and wife.

Michael’s SOPs       

  1. Park the car correctly. In our small two car garage, proper car alignment is essential.
  2. Split your bagel with a butter knife. For a pre-sliced bagel, a butter knife lets you get the perfect separation of the two original slices (to truly benefit from this instruction you probably need to see me do it).
  3. Use the correct silverware for the food you’re eating. I have an intuitive sense for this one. So, at meal time it’s best just to let me choose which goes on the table.
  4. Roll your toothpaste from the bottom of the tube. This insures that you use every bit of paste.
  5. Always make up your bed at some time during the day. Even if it’s an hour before bedtime, it always makes the day better to pull back the covers when you go to bed.
 Beth’s SOPs       

  1. Store bakeware by shape. Circles go with circles, squares go with squares, and rectangles go with rectangles.
  2. Put towels away according to color. Purple and green towels go in the purple and green bathroom. The blue towels go in the blue bathroom. All others go in the hall closet.
  3. Every dinner needs a green vegetable.
  4. Food has assigned purposes. It is not meant to be snacked on at just any time.
  5. If you eat the last apple from the bag, throw the bag away.

Hope you enjoyed our SOPs. Some of them might come in handy should you ever stay with us sometime. ;)

Happy Valentine’s Day from Michael and Beth!

Bonus:

For more Valentine’s Day fun, read our Valentine’s post from last year: Five Quirky Things We’ve Taught Each Other.

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