Shatner Rules

mind,” I said, “I found my . . . stolen things.”
    The media culture was not the same in the 1970s as it is now. Today, theft of my unmentionables would be blogged, tweeted, and Facebooked up the wazoo. But even then, in a smallish city, an enterprising reporter could have been listening to a scanner and gotten a scoop about my crime.
    Imagine the headlines!
----
    SHATNER SHORTS SWIPED
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    “ENTERPRISING” THIEVES HEIST HANES
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    WILL’S WHITEYS: WHERE NO THIEF HAS GONE BEFORE!
----
    I figured I would have to solve this crime myself. Or at least run down to the local Sears and just—
    The phone rang. I picked it up. Whoever was calling me was in a crowded place.
    “Hello?”
    “Mr. Shatner, I have your underwear,” said the woman on the other line.
    “I see.”
    “All of it!” she threatened.
    “Of course. I’d like it back please.”
    “Sure, but first you have to do something for me . . .”
    “Call me back in three minutes, on this line. I’m calling the shots now!” I hung up the phone.
RULE: If They Do It in the Movies, You Should Do It in Real Life
    She had to understand that she was playing with the big boys now. I sat on the bed until she called back.
    “Okay, what is it? What do you want?” I said in my best authoritarian voice.
    “I’ll give you back your underwear, but you have to give me your autograph.”
    Time to play hardball.
    “I spent forty-five minutes giving out autographs today at the convention. Where were you?”
    “On line,” she snapped. “But then you took off before I got to your table.”
    Oh dear. Remember all that stuff I wrote about my commitment and dedication to my fans? Well, I’ve always felt that was important, that’s always been my credo, even way back in the early days of the conventions. My interview with the local news station was a contractual obligation, but it’s quite possible that this poor woman, this mastermind behind the underwear job, had waited for nearly an hour, only to see me pack up and shuffle off.
    She wanted my attention. And rather than grab me by the nuts, she grabbed the things that contain the nuts. I felt guilty, and I at least owed her an autograph. I relented.
    “Okay,” she said excitedly. “I’ll be up to your room in two minutes.”
    “No way in hell!” I yelled, forgetting the fan loyalty credo, and headed down to the lobby once we agreed on a drop location.
    I went down to the lobby and scanned the room. Many folks in town for the convention were staying at the hotel, judging from the number of homemade Federation uniforms worn by the mingling masses. Would my underwear-napper be dressed as Uhura? Would it be a Nurse Chapel, giving my loot the once-over with a cardboard tricorder? Perhaps I should be looking for a lady costumed as the Vulcan matriarch T’Pau, my shorts in her death grip?
    Nope. It was a young, seemingly normal woman in her late twenties, seated in an overstuffed chair, gripping a wrinkled brown bag in her lap. Next to her was a largish portfolio of some sort. She nodded to me, keeping it cool.
    “Okay, I’ll sign whatever,” I told her. “Gimme my stuff.”
    “Not until you sign,” she threatened. “What if you just take it and run?”
    “I’m not going to sprint across a crowded hotel lobby with a paper bag full of my underwear. Some of us have dignity.”
    She nodded, handed me the bag, and undid the strings on her leather portfolio. The case opened, revealing a variety of 8×10s of yours truly, from
Star Trek
,
The
Twilight Zone
, a few movies, some candids. This was a
fan
.
    She pulled the cap off a marker, handed it to me, and began sorting her photos in the order she wanted them signed.
    “All of these?” I exclaimed.
    “You promised!”
    “I promised
an
autograph. Not a dozen. I’ll get writer’s cramp. I’ll be left to pull on my underwear with only one good hand. Pick your favorite and I’ll sign it.”
    She pouted, and sorted through the photos. “Just one? That’s all?”
    “Yes, one signature,” I explained.
    She sat back in the chair, smiled, and then bounded up. She pulled down the front of her shirt, revealing her left breast contained in its bra cup, and said, “Autograph my boob.”
    Dignity. It’s always been important to me, and my code of dignity has guided my life. And it then guided me to run across a hotel lobby, holding a bag of my underwear under my arm.

CHAPTER 9
RULE: Eat What You Kill! (Provided It Doesn’t Kill You First!)
    I t