Wife swap - Western-style
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

By Julie Carter

A Boston homemaker wife stepped out of a white Suburban and gasped as she, through rhinestone-edged sunglasses, took in the endless vistas that surrounded her.

She tugged her faux fur a little tighter around her, leaned into the wind as it whipped her hair in three directions and rolled a tumbleweed up against her bare legs with feet slid stylishly into strappy pumps.

Hardly the fashion for the upcoming job that would include breaking ice on water tanks, fixing the flat on the feed truck before she fills it with feed and, while she's at it, climbing to the top of the overhead bins to check the feed levels to gauge when the next load should be ordered from the supplier.

Through my Web site, I was contacted by a casting producer at ABC television and informed that the fourth season of "Wife Swap" is underway. She asked if I knew anyone in the Western/cowboy community that would like have their family showcased.

The premise of "Wife Swap" is that one parent from each household swaps places for a week to experience how another family lives. Families can live anywhere in the U.S., but must consist of two parents and at least one child older than 5 living at home.

An honorarium of $20,000 goes to the selected family. I saw that as a possible alternate revenue source for the ranching industry.

I thought they'd be interested and, sure enough, upon hearing what it paid, a friend with a ranch and a husband asked if she could borrow my kid and "what did the city husband look like?"

Her husband was simply concerned if the incoming city gal would be able to help build a few miles of fence. And it would help if she looked like Angelina Jolie or Katie Holmes. That, at a glance, sums up the romance of the West.

In the interest of full disclosure, I felt it prudent to give Ms. ABC Television a full rundown of what would be expected of the unsuspecting woman in the ranch/city swap.

I suggested that first, as a warning, she should brief the unsuspecting suburban woman about the lack of charm in the "real West," although it would become clearly evident to her within a few hours of her first day.

The first morning she will be faced with checking the calving heifers, cleaning up after the puppy that puked under the coffee table, the kid that has to make it to the bus before 6 a.m. to get to school 50 miles down the road, the husband who just remembered to mention the 27 people arriving to help work cattle for the day that will need lunch, a green colt that needs to be busted off before they start on the drive, and that she has to get somebody to run the mail today before she switches the valves on the water system and opens the gravity flow valves to waters in six other pastures.

In between these chores, the water tanks in all those traps have to be checked because the calves have been getting in them and breaking floats.

The logistics of enjoying any semblance of civilization should discourage thoughts she might have of seeing a movie in a theatre, dropping by for a pedicure while she's in town 75 miles away, or having any kind of a "girl" conversation with anyone but the border collie and heifer she's on duty to watch.

Minimal duties would include bucketing drinking water from the cistern, splitting firewood for the wood box and bottle feeding colostrum to the new baby calf thawing out in the bathtub.

I'm sure "Wife Swap" producers will think I made this list of "disclosures" up, but there is an entire world of ranch wives out there right now that would agree, but are, also, mentally making a list of the many things I didn't include.

Okay ABC, bring it on. Let's see how long this lasts.

Visit Julie’s website at www.julie-carter.com.