Chores That You Really Hate(d)

[V.C. Brunswick]

Whether it was from our childhood or present day "Honey Do's" we all have or have had that one chore that we really hated. The one from my childhood was vacuuming, especially when you had to lug that heavy vacuum cleaner all over the house. There was also its cord that was almost stationary -- it would easily unplug itself when you vacuumed just a couple of feet. And the present-day one I really hate is breaking down cardboard boxes to be thrown out. Because flattening them is often not enough, sometimes you have to cut them up to make them fit in the trash can.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Emptying the mouse traps. I didn't have the heart for it, and would spring the traps before a mouse could end up in them. Dealing with the flypaper down cellar was pretty awful too. There were always living flies stuck to it, and if you stepped on them to put them out of their misery you ended up with the flypaper stuck to your shoe. Blech.

Taking back the empty bottles was always a pain, too. Flies, smell, and boxes that always fell apart at the worst moment.

As for current chores, I hate yard work. I have a tiny little piece of yard -- it's not a lawn because very little grows on it but moss and dandelions -- and I hate having to maintain it. I'd put down cement and paint it green if I could afford to.

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

Greetings All:
This one’s easy for me...
Cutting grass
Raking anything
Shoveling snow
Thank you Dr. Cardiologist.
B

 

[Hurricane Jack]

Detasseling corn, picking up the cobs, & cleaning out fence rows.

 

[Fading Fast]

...I'd put down cement and paint it green if I could afford to.

My dad said those exact words and had even taken it a step further and found out that the city rules wouldn't allow him to do it.

Growing up, my list of chores was long as the view in my house was anything I could do, I did as it was how I earned my keep. Most were okay, but I hated waxing the car as my dad bought this wax that was thick as paste, was hard to rub in and took meaningful effort to buff up - no Turtle wax at our house. There were many easier-to-use waxes, but not for me - he liked the hard paste kinds. My friends could wax a car in an hour or two, for me it was a half-a-day or longer job.

The other thing I hated was raking leaves. Don't know why, but I hated it. I probably wouldn't now as I find I like some household chores today as, opposed to my real work, many are very straightforward: something needs to (say) get cleaned, I do a few things and it's clean - I find it very satisfying. The same with laundry; I almost like doing it as it is nice to have a big pile of freshly cleaned and folded clothes at the end of the effort.

Also, growing up, until we replaced our septic tank with a sewer line, I had to mop up the basement (and then sanitize it) the few times a year the septic tank backed up - that was hateful.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

The cardboard box thing leads to one of my major gripes. We sell on eBay and we're constantly shipping things out. I keep stressing the need to have a small supply of packing materials on hand (boxes, newspaper, etc from stuff that we had ordered online) but instead it just gets thrown away and then we have to go out and buy them when we need to ship something out,

 

[GHT]

Anything to do with scatology. Whether it's emptying the cat's litter box or scrubbing the lavatory pan, I hate it. If there was one thing that I got merit points for early in our marriage, it was leaving the toilet spotless, because if I don't like doing it, I'm sure others don't either.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Anything to do with scatology. Whether it's emptying the cat's litter box or scrubbing the lavatory pan, I hate it. If there was one thing that I got merit points for early in our marriage, it was leaving the toilet spotless, because if I don't like doing it, I'm sure others don't either.

The job of sweeping up Roxy's poop on the patio has somehow devolved on me. Fortunately it's small and dries up very quickly.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One of my favorite chores at work: fishing a used Adult Diaper out of the toilet, left there by a thoughtful senior citizen who can't or won't read signs.

 

[scottyrocks]

Bathing, but I do it whether I get my monthly notice from the Board of Health, or not.

 

[Zombie_61]

...The other thing I hated was raking leaves. Don't know why, but I hated it...

This is the first chore that came to my mind. At one time our little plot of land--approximately half an acre I'm told--had nine avocado trees, an orange tree, a peach tree, a nectarine tree, a fig tree, and two or three small lemon trees growing on it, all of which seemed to drop leaves constantly and in great numbers. Pick a spot, start raking, form a pile, put that in the trash can (no leaf burning here), pick another spot, start raking, lather, rinse, repeat. And somewhere along the way a wind would always kick up and I'd have to start raking all over again. Not difficult, but monotonous and time consuming to say the least.

 

[tonyb]

Scrubbing garbage cans.

Plastic garbage bags didn't exist in the world I lived in back in my pre-pubescent years. So the receptacles got really nasty. And I got assigned the task of cleaning them out, both the small ones in the kitchen and the big galvanized steel cans outside.

 

[GHT]

One of my favorite chores at work: fishing a used Adult Diaper out of the toilet, left there by a thoughtful senior citizen who can't or won't read signs.

 

[tonyb]

One of my favorite chores at work: fishing a used Adult Diaper out of the toilet, left there by a thoughtful senior citizen who can't or won't read signs.

It stuns me that anyone would think that in any way appropriate.

 

[3fingers]

It stuns me that anyone would think that in any way appropriate.

I have worked with the public in one way or another for most of my working life.
I am no longer surprised by anything that people do in public places. Repulsed and disgusted yes, shocked no.

 

[Zombie_61]

One of my favorite chores at work: fishing a used Adult Diaper out of the toilet, left there by a thoughtful senior citizen who can't or won't read signs.

I have to wonder if they do this at home as well, and if they have their plumber on speed-dial.

 

[BobHufford]

Weeding Grandma's garden. Hated it so much that I did not have my own garden until two years ago (and I skipped last year due to dealing with the 1000-year flood -- yeah, that's the reason).

 

[HudsonHawk]

Growing up in Florida, I never had to shovel snow or rake leaves (as we say down South, you don't have to shovel sunshine). My dad would never let me cut the grass, for fear I'd scalp his precious patch of St. Augustine. We had concrete floors, so no vacuuming was required. So we had to wash dishes. I hated washing dishes. My sisters and I always whined about why we couldn't get a dishwasher, and my mother would say "I've got three of them...now back to work." Looking back, it wasn't that onerous, but it was torture to a 10-year old to spend the last hour before bedtime scrubbing the dishes.

And not really a "chore" because it wasn't all the time, but I hated picking strawberries. My grandmother used to make and tell me it built character. But a pox on anyone who makes you pick strawberries.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It used to be a summer thing up here to hire kids out to rake blueberries, which was a pretty obnoxious way to spend nine hours a day standing in the sun. And as a fringe benefit you learned to despise blueberries.

 

[scotrace]

Yard work also. And washing dishes, though that's always my chore. Along with the litter box. Disgusting. I don't even like cats.
When I was a kid, it was shoveling snow. I don't mind it now, because the shovel is so light. When Dad made me do it, the shovel was all metal and weighed a ton before you shoveled a flake into it. And the driveway was enormous.