06 | February | 2014 | Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss

What’s the household task you most dislike doing? Why do you think that is — is it the task itself, or something more?

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Ironing

A household task I do not like doing? I am woman and therefore I was born to spend my wordly exsistence with household tasks.

The dishes will not do themselves, but for that I have a dish washer. You do not have a dish washer? In our local supermarket you can buy plastic plates, knives and forks, no problem, they can be disposed of after use in the garbage can. On the other hand washing dishes manually is a creative work of art. Imagine a soiled dish with remainders of a meal adhering to the surface. I am sure Picasso used these patterns as an inspiration for his paintings. When you rinse the dish you have a feeling of achievement, removing the remainders of the veg, meat and gravy. You then immerse the dish in a soapy mixture. Look at the soap bubbles and the brilliant colours they show on their reflections: more aesthetic it could not be: applying energy when scraping the remains of the meal is a good physical exercise. Afterwards the dish is showered with clean water and you are left with a shiny plate to be dried with a cloth. So let us be honest ladies (and men), you have a certain triumphal feeling when you have completed the task and you see the plate showing the reflection of your face, although I do prefer a dish washer.

Remember the days of the Neanderthal, they lived in caves. They had no hoover, there was no dish washer. They did not need these instruments of power cleaning.Their home was a cave. Today you pay a fortune to have a floor fitted with natural stone. The cavemen had it all free. There was, of course, a problem with decorations, but even this was solved. Forget the cavemen illustrating the walls with paintings of their hunting expeditions. It was all done by the women. They wanted something pretty on the walls, just bare stone was boring. The colours they used were probably recycled matter from their meals.

Admittedly our ancestors just threw everything on the floor, it was biological cleaning, very environment friendly.

Today we have a place for everything. We no longer throw everything on the floor. There may be some families shaking their heads and saying “tell that to the kids”. This may be true, but we housewives would feel unwanted, redundant, if the kids had a tidy room with no objects lying on the floor. Something would be missing in our housewife life.

I can speak from experience, I had a family where the men outnumbered the women. Imagine one clean pair of socks every day and every evening the socks disappearing in the sock eating monster (dirty wash container) to be washed. The sock wash programme might be once a week, perhaps twice a week. We will take the once a week as an example. If you have three men work it out – that would be twenty-one pairs of socks a week equalling forty-two separate socks. If your men have various sizes that would cause a further problem. There is a further complication. When sorting the washed and dry socks, if they all follow the modern trend in colours, you will be confronted with forty-two black socks in three different sizes. Are you with me? The next problem is a discontented sock user that finds he has a pair that does not match. Whose fault is this? The washing machine, the sock eating monster or the lady of the house, who never wears men’s socks generally. Her socks are more daring in colour and the housewife always recognises her own socks. As men generally do not concern themselves with the details of the wash programme, it will be the housewife who is at fault.

How to avoid this problem? That is quite easy. Search for a large empty place, a table is suitable. Put the socks on the table and call “come and get it”. You are then surrounded by three helpful males sorting their socks and pairing them together. The housewife is happy, the men have found a new responsibility in their domestic life and are proud of their achievement. This is pure task psychology.

So where is the problem? There is no household task I dislike doing. It is just a matter of domestic education.

Daily Prompt: Those Dishes Won’t Do Themselves (Unfortunately)

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