Mowing the grass. bleah.
I hate all chores equally, although some are more equal than others. And I would rather move house every 2 weeks than put away laundry. It gets washed and dried, then thrown onto a big pile on a loveseat designated specifically for that purpose. Because we’re brimming with creativity, we call it the “laundry chair.” No amount of positive encouragement, nagging, or death threats has ever/will ever convince me to fold/hang/press clothes after they are dry.
If I ever have kids, they can be my laundrybots. After they move out, then it’s back to the laundry chair we go (unless we can afford a maid).
- Yard work. All of it.
- Cleaning the kitchen sink trap.
- Cleaning the bathrooms. Sink, tub, toilet, mirror, all of it.
Fortunately, we now have a cleaning woman who comes in every other week. She does that now.
- Mowing the lawn.
The cleaning woman doesn’t do that, unfortunately. And everyone around here who mows lawns, cuts the grass really really short, which means (a) anyplace there’s a bump in the lawn, they cut it all the way down to the ground, and (b) if we have a dry spell in summer (and we have one sometime almost every summer), the lawn turns brown real fast.
So I keep on mowing my own lawn, and look forward to the day when the Firebug can take over that chore. I’m thinking four more years.
- Trimming the shrubbery (Ni!) Same deal with this: a few more years, and the kid gets to take over. Lucky him, huh?
But the big one I hate that nobody’s mentioned so far is:
- Keeping up with all the damned paperwork that piles up on my desk.
And no, going paperless isn’t the solution. First of all, the problem is the stuff itself, not the physical or electronic form. And second, getting bills and other paperwork electronically would just make it easier to miss it in the torrent of incoming email. (Or think, “I’ll deal with that tomorrow,” and have it get buried on page 5 of the in-box before the next time I would think about it.) We don’t get a ton of snail mail, so it’s nearly impossible not to notice a bill or other important missive when it arrives in the mailbox.
So paper beats the alternatives, at least AFAIAC, but it’s just the least worst option. I still hate dealing with it.
Chores that don’t bother me:
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I don’t hate dusting, because for the most part, I just don’t notice it until it gets thick enough to write your name in. I’m sure I’d hate it if I’d ever felt compelled to actually dust. But the cleaning woman does that too.
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I kind of enjoy vacuuming. I don’t do it much anymore, because the cleaning lady does that too. The hard part of vacuuming is getting stuff off the floor first.
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Sweeping. Well, swiffing nowadays, since any smooth indoor floor is much easier to clean with a swiffer than with a broom, and does a better job too. (Not to mention, it’s too easy to kick dust into the air when you’re sweeping with a broom.) Usually need to swiff the kitchen floor at least once in between the cleaning woman’s visits, but it just takes a minute, and the floor feels so much better under bare feet.
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Doing laundry. I don’t get the problem here. Put stuff in the wash, come back in an hour, move it to the dryer and start your next load in the wash, repeat as necessary. Great chore to do when you’re taking a day to just goof off around the house, but want to be able to say you actually accomplished something.
It helps that (a) I’ve raised the minimization of laundry folding to an art form, and (b) the cleaning lady also makes up the beds with clean sheets.
Well, most of them suck , but for some reason, I find the process of moving wet laundry from the washer to the dryer to be ineffably tedious.
I really dislike painting as well. I guess that falls into the “chore” category, even if it only has to be done once every several years. Rolling paint isn’t so bad, but anything that requires either prep work (scraping) or brushing is just boring as hell.
Trimming hedges is annoying because it’s usually hot, buggy, dangerous work and the damned things just grow back. Every. Damn. Year.
Ironing. I hate to iron. Therein lies the irony as I like all cotton shirts.
Paying the hired staff, really letting them go if they don’t measure up to my needs.
Weeknight cooking. I have a long commute and when I get home I don’t want to shop or cook or try to decide what to make that fits around the busy activity schedules of two moderately picky teenagers. Frequent take-out is not an option, and there is such a thing as too much pizza, I’m afraid to say. I’m thinking of instituting a kid’s cooking night where they shop and cook. How bad could it be?
Put them to work. What’d you have 'em for? 90% of the reason to have kids is you get little servants.
I hate mopping. I blame my time in the military, because I now mentally associate mopping with being sleep-deprived, and the floor being clean already, but no, it needs to be mopped again at one in the morning.
I also hate folding laundry and ironing. Shuttling stuff between the washer and dryer, fine. But I’m the person who, without some serious self-discipline, will live with two laundry baskets: one clean, one dirty. Grab from the clean one in the morning, chuck it in the other at night.
It is hard for me to get started painting but once I do I don’t mind it. Same with most jobs around the house. Sorting out drawers and cabinets I tend to put off but once I start I can get into it. I dispise washing walls and can never get into it.
Vacuuming. I take to vacuuming like a house afire. Which is to say that, when presented with it, my first instinct is to pack up the pets and the laptop and evacuate the premises while someone better qualified handles it.
The only chore I really don’t mind is doing the dishes. I hate looking at the full sink and feeling that sense of UGH SO MUCH WORK, but once I’m washing them, I feel relaxed and I can sing cheerfully and it’s a good time.
But I hate putting them away. I hate putting anything away. That’s the worst chore category. Dry dishes, clean laundry, new groceries, any miscellaneous things I have gotten out of their proper space… It all just dredges up that feeling of “Mooooomm, I don’t WAAAANT to,” that doesn’t go away until the chore is done.
I used to hate dusting until I learned that the trick is to do it every week so that the dust doesn’t pile up – it’s easier to keep your space dust-free than it is to MAKE a space dust-free. Then your weekly chore takes 30 seconds per room, rather than 30 minutes.
I hate, hate, hate mowing the yard. What’s weird is I live in the city and my yard is about the size of a parking space. I think that’s part of what annoys me, it’s just big enough that I can’t do the whole thing with a weed whacker and I have to get out the mower for this stupid little piece of lawn.
Mostly I hate mowing the lawn in 100 degree tempature
Folding laundry. Ugh.
Hate:
- sweeping and mopping floors
- cleaning bathtubs
Actually Kind Of Enjoy
- laundry
- dishes
- vacuuming
Basically, chores where there is a clear goal line are enjoyable for me. When the laundry is clean and folded and put away, it’s done. When the dishes are scraped, the dishwasher run, and the dishes put away, it’s done. When the carpet is all fluffy in those cute parallel rows, the vacuuming is done.
Chores where I have to make a subjective call about whether they are done or not (Is the bathtub clean enough now? scrub scrub How about…now?) are tedious and stressful to me.