It's no lie that I have always hated doing the dishes. My chore growing up involved the dishwasher, and I hated it because food, post-eating, has always grossed me out. I'd much rather muck horse stalls or clean and dress a gangrenous fetlock. But I'm not going to write about the dishwasher this time. Not really. Instead, I'm going to write about my parents' bright idea when I was about 10.
We lived next door to an elderly widow that all the neighborhood kids called Aunt Pearl. She was really sweet and I enjoyed visiting with her. One day, though, my parents got this great idea that I should go trim the grass around Aunt Pearl's chain link fence. And when they informed me of this great decision, I was informed in such a way that I knew it wasn't optional. The thing was, it was HUGE chunks of grass. Now this would've been no big deal. If we owned a weed wacker. Which we didn't. Nope. What we had were rusty Edward Scissorhands-esque grass clippers.
So instead of riding a horse and hopping around the block with my friends on my purple and green pogo ball, I spent an entire Saturday strapped to the grass clippers. Whacking my way through monstrously thick clumps of weeds. Hot spots grew on my skin. I kept going. They filled with water and popped and drained, even as more hot spots popped up. No one had given me any gloves, you see. I still have huge scars all over my hands from those blisters. Okay, not really. At least about the scar part ;-)
By the time I finished, I was done for! My back was all cramped, my thighs were sore from squating so long, and my hands were shredded. Aunt Pearl sure was pleased though, and gave me $2 for my all-day ripper-fest. Looking back, it was one of those character-building experiences that kids hate and adults love. Pretty sure my boys will have a few of those in their future - but hopefully without the blisters!
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As promised Mister Linky is getting the boot. There are a couple of options, so this week I'm trying inlinkz. Hopefully it'll go smoother than the past few weeks have. So add your link and pic in and let's try it out!
Eh...inlinkz didn't work. Not sure what went wrong. I'm going to have to test drive these things a bit. For now, my apologies, here's Mister Linky:
Next week's topic is "It Was My Friend's Idea". Hmmm. I sure have a lot of choices for that one ;-)
Eh...inlinkz didn't work. Not sure what went wrong. I'm going to have to test drive these things a bit. For now, my apologies, here's Mister Linky:
Next week's topic is "It Was My Friend's Idea". Hmmm. I sure have a lot of choices for that one ;-)
Mister Linky worked! I can't believe you had to cut the grass with scissors?!...and I didn't even want to use the push mower...I didn't realize how easy I had it :-P
ReplyDeleteSounds like something my parents would have made me do. Sorry about the blisters but at least Aunt Pearl gave you a little money for doing all that hard work.
ReplyDeleteMan, wish I would have checked out your theme this week. I skipped this one because I was thinking it was next week's theme. =( Maybe I'll do a reverse and do my chore next week instead.
Isn't it funny how parents always seem to give kids these kinds of "character building" activities at least once?!
ReplyDeleteI hear you - there are some things where you think to yourself, "I'd rather muck out stalls or take a horse's temperature" than do THAT (whatever it is).
Oh my goodness, varunner, I never came back to input data into mean Mr Linky...:)
ReplyDelete