On Saturdays, the Girls Clean the House
“A clean house is a house of honorable people”
As a child and teenager, every Saturday morning was marked by a well-established routine. While my brother possibly could assist my father with some tasks related to his business, I was entrusted with all the mundane chores related to household duties.
I loathed everything about it and had even less talent for such things. I did everything with such displeasure that it seemed as though an invisible weight had been added to my legs and arms, pulling them inexorably towards the ground, making me already half-bent at such a tender age, doing everything lamentably begrudgingly.
I hated cleaning the windows with scraps of old newspapers. I hated entering the dusty pantry, rummaging through the same old mess on the endlessly disorganized shelves.
It bothered me to dust the furniture and then go over it again with cedar oil to make it gleam. Unlike my mother, who rejoiced in those artificial scents, I deeply despised them.
They invaded my nostrils without permission, causing itching and forever associating them with something done quite reluctantly. I also hated washing the dishes, leaving my fingers wrinkled from the prolonged action.
