Rats

Maddie came runnning inside, down to the basement, where I was doing laundry and Gary was doing ... something or other.

There's a dead rat in the pool, she said. It's caught in the skimmer basket.

She breathlessly explained that Zoe's ball had fallen into the pool (Zoe is our beagle, lest you wonder why we allow neighborhood children to play ball around the pool). Maddie had tried to pull it out of the skimmer, and she encountered the DEAD RAT.

What, she wondered aloud, if the rat died of a disease? Zoe's ball was right next to it, and Zoe has the ball in her mouth. What if she gets sick?

Gary finished what he was doing and went outside with Maddie. I wondered if it might be some other sort of wildlife - mouse, gopher, woodchuck.

But I let him deal with it.

We have our own division of labor around here. I take care of laundry, grocery shopping (for the most part), bill paying, all the girls' details (dentist, orthodontist, etc.). I clean the house - or hire someone to do it. Gary takes out the trash, maintains the pool, does the big investing and money managing. He takes care of the lawn - or hires someone to do it.

I am truly a feminist. But we have a very traditional, sexist allotment of household tasks. He works full time; I don't. It works for us.

It especially works when there are issues like bugs. Or excremental wildlife to be dealt with.

After a few minutes, I headed out to the pool. It was not, as I had suspected, a rat. It was a mole. The girls had already buried it and were mid-memorial service. The mole's final resting place is marked with a stone under a bush.

I am so lucky that my husband takes care of these details for me. I am equally lucky that he s the kind of husband who understands that it's good to be a feminist. When it's convenient.