i grew up on a working ranch. i worked right along side my father, my brother and my brother-in-law...whether we were baling hay, gathering cattle, feeding cattle (actually, i had to start doing that by myself when i turned 9)branding cattle, etc. so, it was ingrained in me that i had to do "men's work" as well as help out in the house.

well.........one day we had been baling hay (up at dawn and in the field as soon as the dew was off the grass) and we came up to the house for lunch. it was the custom that the men ate first and the women got whatever was left over.(and let me tell you that i got awfully tired of chicken wings, backs and drumsticks.)

i was close to 14, as i remember it, and a sophomore in highschool. it hit me that i was never again going to take "seconds" after i had worked just as hard as those men had worked. (oh yes, my brother got paid but i got nothing)

i lit into my daddy and he almost passed out. i informed him that not only did i work as hard as he did, but my mother had slaved in that hot kitchen for hours and we weren't going to stand for seconds any more. and we didn't.

THEN, i married an alcoholic......fancy that! i put him through lawschool by selling off all of those cattle that i had worked so hard to accumulate. i worked so hard to be sure that he had time to study. he wouldn't even let me buy a television because he thought it might distract him. i couldn't have friends over because that would be distracting. his happiness was all i ever thought about. that's how i had been reared.

i think i'll just go hunt him up now and slap him upside the head!! the only friends that i had were his drunken parents. and since i hated that......i had no friends. so i got a horse and a greyhound and that was it........ANd no rock and roll was allowed..only country music could be played in the house.......but i sneaked in Elton John and Joe Cocker and Leon Russell!!

i thought that when he graduated, he would take over all the work that i had been doing..besides working full time in an office job. NOT. he didn't do diddly ----. he was so used to my doing everything that he didn't even think about it.

i took a long hard look at his parent's marriage and saw the same thing. eventually, we divorced and afterwards i wondered how he managed to figure out using the washing machine, etc. etc. etc.

in my second marriage, my husband just paid to have everything done. so, i found my own niche doing volunteer work, putting on photography workshops, etc. i don't know how that would have played out with him. i do know this. he wanted a cheerleader and i finally figured out that i had laid my pompoms down in highschool. so we divorced. and i'm still single.

it is amazing to me to see a couple where one or the other waits hand and foot on the mate. i'd just slap someone who kept filling my glass now. there's a lot of passive aggressive stuff going on there, i believe. my opinion.