QUESTION:

a) Next time, don’t put jalapeño relish on the hot dogs.

b) Limit your future athletic efforts to marshmallow eating contests.

c) Share your Muses.

ANSWER: c) Share Muses Document Number 8 (Agreement Giving Authorization for Visitation and Access to Hospital/Medical Facility) with each other so the next time your significant other wins a hot dog eating contest, you can give the hospital a copy so you can hold their hand in their hospital room after getting their stomach pumped.

QUESTION: The doctor has successfully pumped your stomach and as a precaution against future problems, he wants to remove a few vital organs. You’re unconscious, but your mom, ever the cautious one, thinks this is a grand idea. How can you make sure that mom won’t be calling the shots?

a) Tell everyone that your parents were killed in the outback and that you were raised by dingoes.

b) Have your vital organs pre-certified as A-OK at least once a year.

c) Share your Muses.

ANSWER: c) Share Muses Document Number 12 or 16 (Authorization to Direct and Approve Medical Care or Treatment and Healthcare Power or Attorney) with your significant other so that they can make medical decisions for you when you are unable to make them for yourself and don’t risk the wrong family member answering the phone when the hospital calls.

QUESTION: You’re in your significant other’s car departing your local coffee shop with a large nonfat Café Latte in hand. Moving a little too quickly you run into the back of a police car. Officer Doright demands to see proof of ownership for the car. Your significant other is on a transatlantic trip and can’t be reached all week. How can you avoid a trip to the slammer for grand theft auto?

a) Next time make sure you order decaf.

b) Always buy an extra latte for Officer Doright.

c) Share your Muses.

ANSWER: c) Share Muses Document 49 (Agreement Giving Authorization to Use Automobile, Boat or Similar Vehicle) with Officer Doright to avoid spending quality time with law enforcement personnel or even insurance investigators.

QUESTION: You return to the home you share with your significant other. It’s 2 a.m. and you’re dead on your feet. You forget to disarm the house alarm. Now, flustered by the alarm’s piercing noise, you can’t remember the code. Officer Doright responds to the alarm and hauls you back to jail for breaking and entering because your significant other owns the home, and you can’t prove your legal right to be there. How could this have been avoided?

a) Never leave home.

b) Have Big Al tattoo the code on the back of your hand.

c) Share your Muses.

ANSWER: c) Share Muses Document 71 or 73 (Agreement Regarding Occupancy Rights of Party Not on the Lease or Agreement Regarding Occupancy Rights of a Non-Owner) so that even if only one of you is on a lease or is owner of the home you live in together the other party isn’t thrown in jail as a cat burglar OR thrown out of the house in a fit of anger by their partner when they return from their overseas trip and learn that their vehicle has been impounded as evidence for grand theft auto!

QUESTION: As an honest taxpayer, imagine your surprise when an IRS audit reveals that you owe thousands of dollars for unreported income. You react…Yikes! Then you realize the “unreported income” was actually reimbursement of your significant other’s portion of your shared living expenses. What can you do to satisfy the IRS that they have made an error?

a) Satisfy the IRS? Are you kidding?

b) Plead insanity.

c) Share your Muses.

ANSWER: c) Share Muses Documents 18, 20, 61 and/or 101 (Agreement Regarding Sharing Household Expenses – Even Split; Agreement Regarding Sharing Household Expenses – Itemized; Promissory Note; and General Cohabitation Agreement) with the IRS to document that sharing expenses and/or loans with each other isn’t rent or other income that is taxable. You can’t tell the IRS to go jump in the lake (after all, they are more scary and vengeful than the Mafia) but a few chuckles in the privacy of your own home would definitely be in order.

QUESTION: What is the best way to show your significant other that you really care?

a) Climb Mt. Everest, barefoot.

b) Shave a grizzly bear with a disposable razor.

c) Share your Muses.

ANSWER: c) Sharing Muses shows that you care by not only allowing you to more fully share in the day to day responsibilities of sharing a home, but it also allows you to prepare for the unexpected. It is critical that you be prepared before a life crisis occurs because, once the unexpected happens, it is usually too late to put safeguards in place. Flowers, candy, romantic dinners and exotic vacations can be romantic and great fun, but Muses is the gift that keeps on giving day after day and year after year at a cost so reasonable that your budget still has room for flowers, candy, and romantic dinners!!