My 8 year old daughter coiled back, drawing her fists up under her chin while assuming a flamingo-like pose on one toe. I looked through the window at the puppy and tried to spy from a safe distance what he was chewing on. I assured myself that it was a rotten apple, fallen from the tree.
This is probably the only time in my life I wished for a rotten apple. Please, please, please be a rotten apple…
But, there was firmness in his bite that told me I was dead wrong.
Closer inspection revealed it was a bird head the dog was eating.
“Get it!” she screamed at me.
Um? No? Disgusting?
The puppy spat the head out at my feet to show me how pretty it was. I stared at the decapitated, walnut-sized noggin of the tiny bird, its feathers licked into a comb-over and its eyeballs eerily missing.
As a mom, there are a lot of really disgusting things I have subjected my gag reflex to. But Bird Flu, Malaria, Rabies, worms, Black Death would be the end-all-be-all of gross-me-out.
I draw the line at prying a bird head out of my puppy’s mouth as long as there is a brave husband within screaming range to do it for me.
I don’t consider myself a Feminist, but, there are certain tasks that I believe are covered under the Man Umbrella.
Car repairs, fixing big, broken things like garage doors and appliances and anything dead definitely reside in Husband territory. However, in an effort to promote equality, I am happy to pull my weight by addressing items that are more motherly (and menial) in nature. Scraping dried up toothpaste off the bathroom sink comes to mind.
Marriage is a give and take. Except for when it’s Honey-do.
If my car breaks down, it’s just understood that the Husband will make a few phone calls, take my car to a Far Away Land where mystical people will do magical things to it (for free) and bring it back in perfect working order. The car goes away broken, it comes back, fixed. This is a way he can take care of me without taking away my freedom or independence.
My husband has saved me from lots of disgusting horrors in our time together. With shreds of toilet paper stuck to his calves, jeans rolled up to his knees, he bailed raw sewage out of the basement when the sewer main erupted. I think that if your potential mate is willing to wade through crap to help you, it’s a good sign that they are in it come hell or high sewer water. If he or she is going to comfort you when you puke, rescue you when your car breaks down and do the things that you just don’t have the wherewithal to do for yourself, you can feel confident that you have probably found your soul mate.
The realities of being in a married relationship sometimes reveal themselves in atrocious ways. Maybe it’s a sewer main erupting in your house. Maybe it’s dealing with a dead animal in the back yard. Real life happens in real life. Whatever the crisis may look like after marriage, I firmly believe that as a fair warning, wedding vows should come with an addendum to clarify what you are really signing up for when you promise, “I Do.”
Wedding promises should include a clause, “…will you stay faithful even though your mate has vomit in her hair and her makeup is smeared in streaks down her face? Furthermore, will you flush the toilet, carry her to bed and bring her a pan –your favorite pan- to throw up in again while she cries like a baby in bed? In front of God and these witnesses, do you promise to love her, even when she is seemingly possessed by Menstruation and has a migraine?”
When getting married, no one ever stops to think about who will be called upon the day the family puppy is caught nibbling on an avian cranium.
Life, marriage, parenting; it’s all about finding the balance and being patient when everything teeters on the fulcrum.
Some days you’re the puppy, some day’s you’re the bird.
My husband willingly assumed the role of “Decapitation Extraction Technician”. He asked for a bag, which I fearlessly handed over. Expressionless, and without complaining about the grim task at hand, My Hero disposed of the head. After a while, it occurred to me that where there is a head, somewhere else is the body. I resigned to cross that carcass when I come to it.
For now, I simply paused with gratitude for having a life that is real, and a husband that won’t take flight when the going gets tough. Would I take this day and all the rest, to have and to hold from this day forward?
I do.
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