The Hated Chore

When the sink is full of dishes, you know they are dirty because you ate off of them, or cooked with them, or drank out of them. You wash them and dry them and put them in the cupboard where they stay clean until you use them again.

Carpet has dirt tracked on it, or crumbs spilled on it, or pine needles fall on it (from your tree that is still up two weeks after Christmas.) You pull out the vacuum and use it and voila! Clean carpet! And it stays clean until shoes are not wiped properly, or you foolishly let the toddler carry around a cup full of Goldfish crackers that she dumps on the floor and then steps on, or you barely nudge the tree and needles come showering off of it.

The bathroom mirror is splattered with water droplets from when your Dear Husband did his hair this morning. The shower tiles are soap-scummy from the showers your family has taken. There is hair on the floor and face-powder on the sink from making yourself beautiful. A few minutes in there with some Windex, 409, paper towels, and a Dustbuster and it's all shiny again. And it stays that way until someone takes another shower.

Now look around you at the flat surfaces in your home. The top of the dresser merely holds up a few bottles of perfume, some candles, a couple of pictures and some jewelry. The bookshelves have books in them, but what about that little area right in front of the books on each shelf? It has no real purpose in life except to display a few knick-knacks. The desk -- there's a computer and printer on it, a telephone and a couple of speakers. You don't eat off of it. You don't do any schoolwork that would leave pencil erasures on it. Yet all of these places get dusty. And then you must dust them. It is a thankless job. You take everything off the dresser, wiping each bottle and picture frame clean as you go, then spray your cloth with Pledge and get rid of that dust. You put everything back and don't so much as look at the dresser top until a couple of days later -- and it's dusty again! You remove those knick-knacks from in front of the books on the shelf, dust it off, replace the knick-knacks and tomorrow when you want something to read what will you find on the shelf? A fine layer of dust on the surface. You didn't do anything to make it dusty. No one did. It just happened. So you decide that you are through with dusting! Forget it! You won't waste your time with such a pointless chore! Until a couple of weeks from now when dust is getting thick on everything and you can't stand it anymore ...

So grab that can of Pledge and repeat after me as you wipe, "I hate dusting. I loathe dusting. I despise dusting." Then stand very still and watch the dust slowly settle back down on the surface you just cleaned.