I never had penis envy, sorry Dr. Freud. I never wished I was a boy and never wanted to be a man. That isn’t to say I am a girlie-girl, I have just always thought that God got me right.
And then there are times when I am truly thankful for my gender; most of them involve unpleasant tasks traditionally relegated to men. Equality is great and all, but someone has to kill the spiders.
I have written here before of the wildlife that we have on our farm, I mean yard. It’s like some kind of rabid petting zoo up in here with all the rabbits and field mice and the occasional possum. Recently there have been coyote sightings in our neighborhood because coyotes are indigenous to the north side of Chicago, right? Yeah, I didn’t think so. We have larger lots in my neighborhood, but that hardly makes us the country. The expressway is a stone’s throw away from our house.
Recently with the brutal cold spell, have come the squatters. Usually we know from the delightful little droppings left behind on the floor, the kitchen island and the couch. Ick! If the droppings are green we know that the life expectancy of our guest is considerably shorter than when he arrived. We take no pleasure in this, but we are not running a shelter for wayward mice either. It is our hope that the mice will check out of the inn before they expire, however every now and then one will pass away in some crook or crevice of our house.
This is where the fun starts. If you have never had an animal die in your wall you don’t know what you are missing. They do not make an air freshener that can eliminate this odor. The situation calls for air removal and replacement. And did I mention that this tends to happen in the kitchen wall so it is the kitchen, where we cook, that is fouled.
Last week we experienced the passing of a mouse. We had seen evidence of his visits. Bob even locked eyes with him one night when our visitor boldly glared at him from the kitchen island. So, we busted out the air fresheners and the diffusers, but it was still brutal. It took a day or so to notice that the odor was coming from a heating vent. Once again Bob spied the now ex-mouse behind some ductwork and promptly announced in a whiney voice I wish I had a vagina. The only other time he uttered those words there was a partially decomposed possum in the back yard that required removal.
After some initial strategizing and a little more whining, Bob stepped up. Moments later we were down one pair of kitchen tongs and one dead mouse, but Bob’s manhood was intact and undeniable once again. And once again I was glad to be a girl.