By David Bitonti
This morning, as I completed picking up after my Boston Terrier in the back yard, I looked down at my plastic-wrapped hand and thought, “Why am I doing this?” I only had to remember the conversation — more like protest — with my wife the last time pooper-scooping came up to know the answer: “Because that’s the guy’s job.”
Oh really. The guy’s job, huh? I started thinking about guys’ jobs and realized that, while I always clean up after our dog and always deal with garbage/recycling days and dump runs and fixing everything around the house, I also do a few, dare I say, girl jobs.
I take care of all the cooking and grocery shopping and I manage the finances. Typically these types of tasks have been looked after by the wives of the world. Still, I find myself clipping coupons for diapers and just about everything else when I make my weekly trip to the local grocer.
Come to think of it, I also do my fair share of laundry, vacuuming, dusting, and clutter-busting. But there is one area my wife has me hands down — our baby son, Andy. She definitely does the lion’s share with him. Not to say I’m a dead-beat dad or anything. I’m not like a few of my guy friends who happily boast they can count on one hand how many diapers they’ve changed. I changed more diapers than that on the first day in the hospital, mainly because my wife was recovering from a C-section. But it still counts, right?
I’m almost more woman than man. I work as a teller at a financial institution. I’m almost the only guy working in the branch save for a couple of managers. My supervisor even jokes, on those odd days when I’m a bit crabbier than usual, that I need to take Mydol. I’m also included in “Good night, ladies!” whenever she takes off for the day.
So I guess the next time my wife assigns me dog doo duty because “it’s the guy’s job,” I can take some pride in it. It’s good, honest, manly work. Might even put some hair on my chest.
