Dear Girls,

In the last few columns I have written about health insurance, medical malpractice, medical science and other topics more boring than watching blood clot, so I thought this time I would write about something more interesting, that being you.

Fortunately, I have had time recently to think up some rules for my daughters in college. These are meant to supplement the high school rules for my daughters that I wrote four years ago, some of which you seem to have forgotten, and some of which I have abandoned, to wit:

. Bowing to changing cultural norms, your ceaseless lobbying, and lacking any support from your mother on this point, you may have EITHER:

… one (that is O-N-E) belly button ring in addition to the two (that is T-W-O) earrings per ear limit as noted in the previous Rules Section VI, Subsection A, Line 3 (wherein I threatened to cut you out of my will for piercing anything below your ears);

… OR one (O-N-E) tattoo, said tattoo to be discreetly placed (by my definition), tasteful (also by my definition), and small enough to be covered by the burnished cherry knob of a Lie-Nielsen low-angle smoothing wood plane. A father who found such a plane under the Christmas tree this December might be able to forget the pain of his daughters rejecting his rules about tattoos and piercings;

. I will be charging you back for wasting any of the money I am paying for your tuition. This applies to any classes you skip, snooze through, or for which you receive grades D through F. It also includes any courses for which the required reading includes “Where’s Waldo,” any course analyzing the role of fraternity parties in college life, and any course whose principle attraction is the fact that your boyfriend is also taking it;

. Remember that I review all of your medical bills, so if you end up in the ER because you swallowed your car keys or tropical fish on a drunken dare I will know, and will add that to your tab;

. I also review your credit card records, and your college book tab had best better your college beer tab;

. I note by the look of the laundry room at home during your last visit that you have been investing your spare cash in Victoria’s Secret instead of the stock market. This is an error I hope you correct soon, because I intend to be very expensive for you to take care of when I have retired with your mother to the woodworking shop/apartment over your garage;

. Please submit the following questionnaire to any guy who wants to marry you, and tell him you must submit this completed questionnaire to your father and await your father’s approval before you give the guy an answer:

. Are you gay? If yes, you may hang out with my daughter. If no, beat it;

. Are you committed to abstinence until marriage? If yes, beat it, because you are a darn liar. If no, beat it;

. Do you know what a Louisville slugger is? So do I. Now, beat it;

. If you are still interested in marrying my daughter, put your name here and wait four years while I submit it to Google, the FBI, the National Crime Database, and for three years of military service that starts today, so sorry;

. Are you still hanging around? If yes, starting tonight take a sabbatical from college and come to my house for three years of indentured servitude. It will include cleaning the winter’s accumulated dog poop from my lawn, hand planing my entire woodpile, hand planing it again because you are certain to have missed some spots, extensive readings about how impure thoughts can lead to young men roasting in hell for all eternity, hot waxing my car (I had asked the Governor of Maine but he seems to be unavailable), and cleaning the stables of Sysiphus. If that goes well, we can talk about your interest in my daughter;

. Attach this completed questionnaire to a new Delta 3 horsepower cabinet saw with an overhead Biesemeyer fence system and full set of dado blades, and send all to me pending my initial two-year review of your application. In the meantime, beat it.

(P.S. The saw is not refundable when [I meant “if”] your application is accidentally dropped into the wood chipper.)

To help remind you girls of this application process for marrying you I have enclosed two Louisville sluggers. Just put them in your purses when you go out for the evening, and if some guy asks what is sticking out of your purse just tell him it is a little gift from your father.

If all of this seems a bit overbearing as usual, just remember there is a direct correlation between the percentage of your income for which you depend on your parents and their involvement in your life. Currently, both are near 100 percent, but as the former decreases, so will the latter.

And finally, when you are out there in the big world try not to fall for a guy who takes you farther away from us. Travel the world, marry a guy of any color you want, and I don’t care as long as you love him and visa versa, and he treats you right. Just bring him home; I cannot bear it if you live any farther away than you are already.

Hoping this is your home this summer.

Love, Dad

Erik Steele, D.O., a physician in Bangor, is chief medical officer of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems and is on the staff of several hospital emergency rooms in the region.