A few nights ago, while attempting to multi-task while prepping dinner, I started to think about a TV series that my husband and I enjoyed a few years ago.  Big Love was an HBO series starring Bill Paxton as the husband in a fictional fundamentalist Mormon family in Utah – and they practiced polygamy.  He had three wives and an impressive home complex that appeared normal from the street side, but with a big shared yard in the back.

Why, do you ask, was I thinking about this bizarre family unit while I was making dinner?  Because I was thinking how handy it would be to have had a sous chef assistant that night to chop up all the veggies that were going into the meal. In short, I was considering how handy it would be to have a sister wife…. or two… or three.

Ok, not for real, of course.  But the more I thought about the busy lives we real women all lead, the less crazy the concept became.  Let’s travel down that imaginary road for a moment, shall we?

If we had sister wives, all domestic chores would be divided up evenly, and could be rotated on a daily or weekly basis. One does the meal planning, one does the shopping, we all pitch in to make meals, thus cutting prep time in half.  Same goes for clean up – or heck, house cleaning in general.  Who’s week is it to clean the bathrooms?  Who’s turn to change the sheets on the beds?

Then of course there are the shared childcare duties. Imagine having someone else to share the Mom-Taxi job.  Sister wife #1 goes to Johnny’s game while Sister wife #2 goes to Jenny’s school open house. Sister wife #3 stays home and watches chick flicks and puts her feet up.  See where I’m going with this? It works with almost every responsibility – one to walk the dog, one to visit an elderly relative, one to go have quiet alone time, sitting on the patio and browsing magazines.

With the right rotational plan, we each actually, finally, get true down time, because it is someone else’s turn to take care of stuff.  Lord knows we are all planners, can you imagine the efficiency of putting two or three women in charge of schedules and procedures?

Let’s take this even further.  Imagine job-sharing.  One goes in to work, the other takes care of things at home, while the third runs errands.  With this process in place, we could use the weekends for – get ready for it – time OFF.  I know, shocking, right?

All holidays would be a piece of cake.  Christmas would be like having a house full of elves to make it all happen.  Think how much easier prep would be if you only had to focus on one or two aspects… elect to be the gift wrapper and the card sender while the others handle shopping, baking and decorating.  Stress-free and easy.  What a concept.

Sure, the thought of sharing one man is horrifying…..or is it?  You know all those nights you are just too darn tired?  Well guess what, its someone else’s turn to keep him happy. Tonight you get to take a bubble bath, read, and go to sleep early.  Huh.

Speaking of scary, the thought of having multiple women under one roof could be a bit treacherous – just ask any family with a mom and several daughters.  But if we were the ones who got to choose who our sister wives were, we’d be able to select our own BFFs, the ones we know we could happily live with.  Need some girl time to go for a walk and vent, cry, or work things out?  Pick a sista and go for it.  And how convenient could it be if we are all going through menopause at the same time?  Windows would be wide open at all times, ice packs at the ready, we’d all tell each other we were still beautiful even with weight gain, and there would be extra brains available to help find lost phones or keys and to tell each other why we walked into the room.

In hindsight I suppose, what I’m daydreaming of is not the lifestyle of polygamy, but more of a sorority.  Not the sororities of our college youth days, where we were focused on civic duties, school improvements, fundraisers and parties…no, what we could use now are groups of sorority sisters (sister wives) who are like-minded, have each other’s backs, and are focused on just getting through our busy days as sanely as possible.

The biggest challenge of course would be to find our own Bill Paxtons who would be crazy enough to go along with it.

Guess I better plan on continuing to chop my own veggies.