Laundry and Black Briefs (April 15,2008)

Laundry and Black Briefs
By: Maria Reylan M. Garcia

Household chores, they make up the list of good deeds little children send to North Pole weeks before Christmas. Household chores, they are part of a month’s worth of torture after dad says you’re grounded. Household chores, they are the conditions before your thumbs get to work on game boys and your wallets filled with allowance. Sometimes a helpless grounded kid might wonder, if these chores were really intended for house keeping, or are they just the next in thing for parents who’d like to torture their children with the slow and burning pain of boredom. Yet, sometimes a bored seventeen year old who has nothing to do on a two month long summer vacation might wonder, if these chores are more than meets the eye.

My mother couldn’t force me to do the laundry or tidy up my bed on school days even if I presume she had been trying to. I simply couldn’t afford to spend some thirty minutes watching a washing machine rotating red boxer shorts, black briefs and a pair of knee socks clockwise and counterclockwise. I would rather spend those thirty minutes ravaging my textbook in chemistry. But now that vacation defines more free time and a break from all brain chores, I took the liberty of trying my skills in laundry, sweeping, fixing beds and those that are yet to come.

A lot of people take household chores for granted, seeing these tasks to be quite lenient and ordinary. I would be a hypocrite if I would deny that sometime ago I did not appreciate much my mother’s effort on keeping our home in order. But a couple of spins made me value more their importance. The steamy rice we see on our tables every meal time. Yes, it may take just some minutes to wash the grains and several more to cook them but someone’s effort of remembering to cook rice for us is not a simple act, especially if this someone wasn’t paid to do so. The shirts we wear and our habit of digging our noses to get a sniff of the detergent’s fragrance. Yes, it may take just two cups of laundry powder and a number of spins to finish them up and hang them dry but someone’s effort of getting those hard-to-get stains off is not a simple act, especially if only a fifth of those washed clothes belonged to that someone.

If it is that menial to do household chores, why do people continually hire housekeepers? We always get that notion of household chores being inferior compared to other tasks. I beg to differ. That hearty and yummy breakfast laid on the table keeps dad fueled up for work for the rest of the day. That cleaned and ironed uniform worn by junior on school days gets him the confidence to raise his right arm and answer the teacher’s question. We tend to disregard the huge value little things such as doing laundry and cooking up rice does. I guess one should get their hands soaked up in soapy water before they could see its significance.

Responsibility, now that is one thing these household chores teach us. I seemed to be programmed in some way that every five o’clock in the after noon, the hour is solely between me and my machine, my washing machine. It even gives me more satisfaction after seeing my mother smile at me, as she now irons the clothes I previously washed and hanged dry. Summer is just a matter of two months, and after which I’ll be back to my hermit self, isolating from the actual world as I dig on my newly bought text books. I may not be certain if could help my mother in the chores as I would do this vacation. I am not that sure if I could spare another thirty minutes to spin some black briefs and red boxer shorts clean on a night before my midterms. But, I am definite that every morning before going to school I won’t forget to thank my mother for waking up even earlier to cook up breakfast. I am certain that every time I’d stain my white uniform I will feel more depressed than I once did. I am sure that from now on household chores won’t be just some good deed list a kid makes for Santa Claus.

Got nothing to do this summer?
Fix your bed. Cook Rice.
They aren’t so boring after all.