Now that we’re getting into fall, my dad is salivating at the thought of me coming home to visit because he has plenty of yard work for me to help out with.
Yard work sucks and I suck at it. Trust me.
Actually, I look like a total sissy in the yard because I don’t like to get dirty (especially my cute outfits and shoes) and I gingerly hold tools, as if they are covered with a disease that could spread to my entire body.
I know, it’s quite a sight to see.
But, the one outside job I hate more than anything, more than raking leaves (and getting callouses) or shoveling snow (and hurting my back) is picking up sticks. I hate it so much!!!
When I was a kid, my parents had a good-size house and yard in Wisconsin and my dad figured out the best way to get me to do this awful job is simple: offer money in exchange for me straining my back.
And it worked.
I picked up sticks in our yard several times to feed my Disney plush toy habit. I just heard, “well, I will give you $5 toward your [insert plush toy name that I absolutely had to have at that moment] if you go pick the sticks up from the yard.”
I don’t believe I even had to think about it because I was immediately in the back yard picking up those f*cking sticks, hating every minute of it.
And when my dad saw me slacking off, he would threaten to decrease my wage, causing my whining and bitching to become a whisper while I picked up those sticks. And he sat on the porch and WATCHED me do it to make sure I earned my keep.
Over the summer while my parents were having some yard work done, I had to help pick up sticks again on their patio and the horrid memories of my childhood came rushing back.
But when I jokingly asked for $5 to help with all the work, dad didn’t think it was funny and offered me hug instead.
I know, I should have asked for $15 to cover inflation.
The recession has hit hard!
What was your least or more favorite childhood chore? I’m sure I wasn’t the only one subjected (still) to labor when they go home to visit!
This is a great idea especially for people.
Cleaning my closets. I’m always clumsy at picking up clothes and choosing them, I tend to mess with everything. My parents know this and always made me clean it myself without help. Argh. And I used to have asthma so I sneezed all the time. Frustating!
this is the funniest thing i’ve read in a while. i had the same thing going on in a yard in st. louis. way to bring it back for me too..
i wish i had only wanted plush toys. i went straight for those cheap earring stores at the mall..
You got of easy, my dad used to make us help him tar the roof and tar driveways…talk about bullshit jobs, those were worth way more than $5 he gave.
oh man i seriously hated putting the dishes away, i don’t detest it nearly as much as i used to. now i hate washing dishes more, haha.
I had to dust and vacuum and I hated it. I especially hated that my sister’s job was windexing all of the glass/mirrors in the house because she did a terrible job at it and I loved doing it. I’d usually go back through each week and redo it for her because she was just so bad at windexing.
I hated unloading/loading the dishwasher. I don’t know why, I just did. Now of course, in my built-circa-1940 apartment, I’d kill for a dishwasher once again. I am not subjected to labor when i go home but until recently, I used to have to lock the windows for my mom each winter. They are tricky and require height and I’m the tallest member of my family–how sad is that?
Cleaning my room always sucked, especially when I would do a big clean … my mother would go through everything I put in big garbage bags, item by item, wanting to know exactly what I was getting rid of. So annoying.
And I hate yard work, too! Brian is leaving on tour Sunday and I made him pay the neighbor to mow our lawn for the time he’ll be gone. However, I still have to use the leafblower and I’m none too happy about it!
you know – i cannot remember a chore that i hated…which i guess means i was too spoiled. i know that i definitely had to do things, but i think that i whined and complained so much – my parents gave up and either had my brother do it, or just did it themselves. i did always hate sorting socks :)
The chore I was always forced to do as a child was dusting, and only because my mom hated doing it also. I think maybe she had a touch of OCD because with the exception of my room she did the rest of the chores.
But dishes also…man, how disgusting is it to touch food mixed with water?
sweeping the floor after dinner. HATED it!
My mom has a touch of OCD and she’s kind of a control freak, so she wouldn’t let us do many of the chores. Eventually she hired people to do yard work and clean the house. I always hated having to clean up the clutter in various rooms before the cleaning people came over.
It’s hard to pick a least favorite chore since I hate them all. I guess dishes were probably my least favorite…maybe vacuuming.
Oh I hate picking up muddy damp sticks, usually with all sorts of horrid insects on the other side too right? My dad’s a farmer and last time we went home for “a holiday”, my dad made The Colonel move the pheasants from one hutch to another (think Napoleon Dynamite chicken scene!)
Oh, GUH. Grandma collected glass miniatures and I was supposed to dust them every other week. She’d go back and check my work and point out every spot I missed, then tell me I was her best duster.
I later learned she told my sister that too.
And to this day I seek a zen-like existence without miniature whatevers and knick-knacks about because I hate to dust them.
We used to have to pick up rocks from the fields. THAT sucked!
washing up.
i have a pathological fear of dirty dishes, especially those which are not my own. i still do…
I hated making my bed. I still do actually so I just don’t. I do the messy pull the blanket over the whole lumpy mess bit :)
I used to mow the lawn regularly, which I actually didn’t hate b/c I got paid and I put on headphones :)
But one chore I hated, and didn’t get paid for, was cleaning the bathroom and emptying the garbage. Uggggh. I think I was just a slacker though.
I disliked cleaning up after our big dog. That was major bummer and stinky!
Picking up nasty, gooey hedge apples that would fall into our acre-sized backyard. The ONLY plus side to this was that my neighbors owned goats and those guys *freaked out* every time one of the hedge apples was tossed over the fence. Goats are dumb.
doing the dishes.
GOD.
the worst.
i hate doing the dishes. and laundry. wait, nighmarish childhood chores are nightmarish adult chores….
i need a maid
Picking up sticks was my least favorite, too! We had to do it at our cottage, I’d walk around with a little plastic wheelbarrow and have to fill that sucker like five times. The worst at home was the leaves, we had to rake them on a tarp and then drag the tarp up the giant hill in the backyard to dump them on the street for pickup. Pain in the ass! I don’t get made to do things like that anymore, I’m not sure why. I never go home during leaf-raking time, lucky me.
My mom would have me dust at home, I did like that one.
I’ve never really had to chores that I hate (at least not that I can remember).
But I used to (and still do) love making my bed and setting the dinner table.
I had to pick up sticks too. And rake leaves. And then pick up the leaves, put them into our giant rolling trash barrel, climb into it to stomp them down, repeat, repeat, repeat. When the leaves couldn’t be stomped down any more, the barrel had to be rolled down the street to the empty lot to be dumped. Repeat, repeat, repeat. We had a lot of trees.
Haha, too funny! Every Saturday morning, my parents woke me and my sister up for yard work. I’m not too horrible at it, but since I now have allergies to basically everything outdoors, I don’t do yard work anymore.
My favorite chore was washing the windows. And washing the dog. THAT was always an adventure. My least favorite was vacuuming. And it’s still the same for me as an adult.