Chloe has been chewing off the chicken wire in the morning, gnawing at the wood in her impatience to get a carrot and get fed. I was ticked at her stomping and rampaging around, bashing up the fence and digging holes with her big hoof.

I had this curious thought. I turned to Maria.

“What would you do?,” I asked, “if I said it’s me or the pony. You have to make a choice?”

(Writer’s note: I may be crazy but I’m not stupid or that crazy. I love Chloe and would never ask Maria to make such a choice, but I was curious to see what she might say.)

Maria fed Chloe a carrot, then turned to me and laugh. She didn’t really skip a beat. “Well,” she said, “if you put it to me like that, and in that way, I’d choose the pony in a heartbeat. Why would I want to be around somebody who would do that to me?”

So let me get this straight, I said, warming to the story. “If you had to choose, you would kick me out and keep the pony, and without too much hesitation?”

“Without any,” she said, giving me her evil Sicilian eye, and adding, “I know what you’re doing, you’re just trying to get a story for your blog. I’ll have to go on Facebook and defend myself.” Life in the fast lane, I said. Suck it up.

I admit the idea of this as a story had occurred to me, and I laughed, thinking about the old farmers in the old days, their word was law, if they said a cow had to go, the cow went – I have heard many of their wives tell that story. One farmer I know went and shot his wife’s dog when he got lame, and she never questioned his decision, at least not in front of him.

As we all know, the old days are long gone, another reason to be suspicious of nostalgia.

I have always considered myself a feminist and I know and love my wife enough to never ask her to choose between me and  her pony. It would not go well.

Then I had a brilliant thought.

“What about a chicken?” I asked. “What if I told you that you had to get rid of a chicken or I’d leave?”

She paused, perhaps a second longer than I might have wished for.

I decided I didn’t really want to know the answer. Or maybe I already did know the answer.

“Never mind,” I said, “I was just kidding around.”