Family business rules for the next generation: do your homework; be a diligent student of your business; learn from your elders but don't hesitate to try out your own ideas, too; read Susan Stapleton's story on page 14; and always keep your sense of humor - sometimes, it's all you've got to hang onto. This is so important, we'll even give you a chance to practice.

Last February we had a lighthearted piece on the "top 10 reasons we all love to be in the rental business," in-cluding such gems as "Do you carry 8-foot tables? How big are they?" and "No, I'm sorry you can't tow that Case 580 backhoe with your Taurus wagon, even if it does have a 2-inch ball." That led to a bunch of other agonies and ecstasies of rental, which we published in Letters to the Editor.

And then awhile back somebody suggested that we get an artist to draw some cartoons, put them in RM and ask our readers to write captions for them.

So here's the deal. Get your crew together around the coffee pot and bounce some ideas around. Then send us all the captions you can think up, and we'll run the best ones in a forthcoming issue.