This is a job for a professional

It was early Saturday afternoon, and I was at my girlfriend’s house, watching a movie on TV.

Or I was trying to, anyway. But Joanne, my girlfriend, seemed intent on assigning me household chores.

“Peter, I need you to mow the backyard lawn,” she said, standing in the living-room doorway, holding a laundry basket.

I moaned and kept my eyes on the TV, even though there was nothing on but commercials.

“C’mon Peter,” Joanne said. “You hang out here all the time, and you eat all my food. It’s the least you can do.”

“I told you I’d pay you back for that box of Tuna Helper I foraged from your pantry,” I said.

“That’s not the point. My parents own the home, and they expect me to keep up the yard. And now that you’re a landscape-maintenance professional, mowing the lawn should be right up your alley.”

“I’m not a landscape-maintenance professional,” I said. “I have a journalism degree.”

“Right,” Joanne said, “but that’s the only job you can get with a journalism degree. So by all definitions, you’re a landscape-maintenance professional.”

I frowned, staring into space. “I guess you have a point.”