Washing the dishes disgusted me, even as a small child. Not because of the dishes themselves, but because the dishes sat in this brownish-green water, full of food and slobber and who knows what else.
I watched my mom fill the sinks with fresh water, and then wash and rinse each dish. The wash water grew foul very quickly, and then the rinse water more gradually. At some point, both sinks looked equally dirty.
My little girl mind couldn't figure out how dishes could get clean in water that looked like that. Mom told me she saved water doing it this way.
But I didn't buy that argument, because it didn't register on my little-girl mind that we paid money for water use. I think I might have understood more if she pointed out the economic impact of her decision, and how we needed to save money.
Or maybe it wouldn't have. I couldn't stand that grody water, and whenever it was my turn to wash the dishes, I ran the water instead of filling the sink.
I still wash dishes that way today.
My second worst chore was the scary chore - first of all, it could only be done downstairs, in our creepy basement where my grandparents lives. They weren't creepy, but those dark rooms downstairs, with only small muddy windows allowing in any light, had me looking around every corner.
We owned one of those washing machines that was one step above scrubbing clothes in a washtub - which we also did sometimes - I saw one a couple of decades later in one of the Smithsonian museums (yes, it was that old.)
It had the spinner-style washbasin. I couldn't take my eyes off it while the clothes swam like fish back and forth inside.
Afterwards came the terror.
The roller.
It was my job to feed the clothes through the roller, and put them in the basket to take them out to dry. My fingers stood constantly in danger of this machine, or so it seemed. The thin clothes made it through all right, but then the thick blankets would cause the roller to snap apart with a loud BANG!
Loud noises frightened me terribly back then, and whenever I ran clothes through the roller, I knew the inevitable BANG! was in my future. Just never knew when.
Did you like any of your chores?
Hanging out the laundry possessed a certain magical quality to it.
I was shorter than the clothesline, and hanging up the heavy stuff made my little arms hurt, but when we finished, the result entranced us - especially the sheets.
When still slightly damp and waving in the wind, nothing cooled your shoulders like running alongside the hanging sheets. My brothers and I would run down the rows of laundry...and then the clothes fell down...and then the yelling started...but it never really spoiled the fun of a good load of laundry waving in the breeze in our backyard.
And it smelled terrific on top of that.
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