Mortal Kombat, Home Edition
I hate housework. You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later you have to start all over again.
~Joan Rivers
Non-work Sundays used to be dedicated to NFL games and catching up on movies. Now they’re exercises in slow torture that would not be out of place at Guantanamo. They’re housework days.
Housework is the kind of activity I file somewhere between “root canals” and “waiting in line at the DMV” on my mental list of things I enjoy. It’s smelly, it’s tedious, it’s boring, and I know that I’ll have to do it all again next Sunday. I find myself on my hands and knees, scrubbing away at a stubborn bit of dirt, asking what I ever did to deserve this (not to mention how my mom did it for years and years without getting a salary.)
It seems I always manage to find excuses not to do housework. Today was a no-excuses day. In no particular order, I cleaned the fridge, mucked out and de-iced the freezer, mopped the floors, scrubbed the sink, did laundry, beat out the rugs, dusted the furniture, got rid of a bunch of junk in my spare room, and recycled a whole bin of paper. The clutter dragon may not have been slain, but I sent that bitch packing for another week. And at the end of it all I’m exhausted.
What really bugs me is the weird disconnect between my fastidious nature at work and my laissez-faire attitude at home. Why am I so obsessive about a single paper clip out of place at the office? Why will I have a coronary over scraps of paper on the floor at one place, and let an empty pizza box sit at the other? What gives?
The problem, and I hate to admit it, is that housework is drudgery. It’s thankless work with no end and I hate doing it. Maybe I’m a selfish bitch for admitting it, but it’s the kind of work that I’d much rather someone else did. The kind of work that makes me wish I were wealthy simply so I could hire someone else to scrub my bathroom and wash my clothes and cook my food.
On the flip side of it, doing housework really makes me appreciate what my mom did for me all those years. She never did it for glamor or because it was sexy. She, and all the other Good Moms in the world, did it because she loved me. That’s the kind of thing that can have no price tag. Even if I became the next Bill Gates I couldn’t buy that brand of love.
Mom may have loved me, but she didn’t pass along her firm grasp of all things domestic. So, until I get rich, I’m stuck cleaning the toilet and the floors and the drapes. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. I’m single, therefore, that someone is me. If I have to pretend I’m doing it in order to win a trip to Hawaii or a Dwight Schultz autograph, that’s what I’ll do.
I’m still not going to like it. And there will only be more of it next Sunday.
What are your strategies for dealing with housework? Do you loathe it or secretly enjoy it?
Prawn And Quartered 
I am kind of a neat-freak which I get from my mom and a few of the jobs I have had. My family jokes about me having OCD because I will wash our entire silverware drawer and cupboards if the dishwasher doesn’t clean them right or I’ll vacuum the entire house (minus everyone else’s bedrooms) if no one is home for a long time. I also try hard to keep my room clean ad organized, especially since I have my home recording setup in there, even to the point that I do not bring or allow food or drink in my room.
Reblogged this on Words From The Heretic and commented:
It is one of those things in life that we dread to do, but needs to be done whether.