A bone, to borrow a cliché

Yep, a bone. To pick. Of contention. Insert your smutty comment here. Whatever.

You see, I've discovered recently that it can be fun to do household chores. There is something surprisingly soothing about folding your children's tiny laundry, putting fresh Nemo bedding on their bunk beds, packing their lunches. Even vacuuming can be fun when you leave it as late as we do and you can actually see a trail of Clean left by the machine among the confetti of the dead leaves and dried up peas on the carpet (she says while listening to the sound of the vacuum cleaner, compliments of her husband).

The point? Think of a book, any book (or movie, or TV series), where one of the characters keeps a well-run household. My examples: Rebecca, The Little House, Desperate Housewives, The Stepford Wives, The Other Woman, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. Chances are, the character turns out to be a villain, or at least a woman with serious psychological issues.

Why is that? Have we sunk so deep into the Executive Girl dream that we cannot imagine a normal woman doing what we've done for millennia without having a powerful (and usually sinister) motive?

Well, how about these for starters: I enjoy gourmet meals, I like clean windows, I love my family?
Nah, it would never fly in a NY Times bestseller.