nobody told me there'd be days like these...

I could be your 'heinamackafrau'.
Yes, you could, you could be zat.
What's that? What is it?
Tell him what it means...'heinamackafrau'.
Hhhheinemachefrau! It means she could be my...cleaning woman.

my mother didn't raise me to be a cleaning woman.

nor did she raise me to be a nanny. my mother raised me to be...well, i'm not really sure what she raised me to be, but it wasn't either of those things, i'm pretty sure.

and yet, at my house i am heinamackafrau.

my wife, see, makes the big money in the family. she is executive woman. she travels, she teleconferences, she e-mails with a vengeance. so at the end of the day, she doesn't have a lot of time or tolerance for domestic chores. can't blame her, and i don't expect it. girl works hard for the money.

besides, i've never believed females should be relegated to domesticity by the fact of their gender. i like women way too much to typecast them. having said that, any of you who want to drop by in a little french maid outfit, be my guest.

sorry, i digress.

me? i dabble in freelance copywriting and take care of the children. my schedule is built around the children's academic, activity and social calendars. i pick them up from school, i take them to karate and ballet, i deliver them to and from play dates. i yell at them to eat their dinner and clean up their room and get ready for bed.

i grocery shop, i cook, i do laundry, i spray clorox cleanup in the bathroom. i tend to the cats and dogs. the many and varied do-it-yourself home improvement projects concurrently underway? those are my fault.

come to think of it, i'm not just heinamackafrau, i'm june cleaver. or maybe edith bunker.

i don't know what to make of all this, but one thing i know for sure: i'd look ridiculous in a french maid outfit.