"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
- Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities"
This quote pretty much sums up doing chores around the house. Some chores are enjoyable because doing them noticeably makes the house cleaner and more organized or satisfies a need of the people living there. Other chores become dreaded because they are painstaking and their benefits are not immediately recognizable.
Here are lists of the best and worst household chores according to a college student:
The Best:
5. Cleaning the bathroom
Surprisingly, cleaning the bathroom is actually preferable to many other chores. As disgusting as getting up close and personal with a toilet is, at least you know it got cleaned properly. Besides, if you want to use the shower in the bathroom to get clean, it's probably a good idea for the bathroom itself to be clean first.
4. Laundry
Having clothes to wear is nice. Therefore, doing laundry isn't so bad. Going through the process of washing, drying, and hanging up every load may get a little tedious, but at least you can look stylish while doing it.
3. Dishes
With the invention of the dishwasher, this chore became much faster and simpler. As long as you do the dishes daily and don't let them pile up, they don't take that much time or effort. Plus the faster you wash plates, the faster you can eat off of them again!
2. Cooking
Cooking almost doesn't even count as a chore because it involves such a high amount of flexibility and experimentation. Enjoy it every chance you get.
1. Reorganizing
Every few months, there comes a time when you just have to reorganize office spaces, bookshelves, or photo albums in order to make the house as a whole presentable. It's actually relaxing because it gives you the opportunity to reflect on the projects you've been working on and how well you accomplished them.
The Worst:
5. Dusting
This is most likely such an annoying chore because you probably don't have the time to dust once a month like people say you should and, when you finally get around to it six months later, there's such a thick layer of dust on every shelf that cleaning it is beyond disgusting. At least you notice the difference once you end up doing it.
4. Cleaning the kitchen floor
No matter how many times you vacuum and scrub it, white tile flooring is never as clean as it was when it was first installed.
3. Picking up sticks
This is probably only a chore if you have a lot of trees in your backyard that constantly lose their branches every time it storms. While picking up sticks does provide a lot of time for introspection, it is overwhelmingly monotonous. The only consolation is that sometimes you get to feel like The Incredible Hulk for moving branches that weigh as much as you do.
2. Weeding
Again, monotonous. And they just keep coming back!
1. Splitting and stacking wood
This is probably only a chore if your house is heated with a wood burner, you have a fireplace, or you really like bonfires. You gotta watch out for poison ivy but at least you'll be warm in the winter.
Thankfully, chores aren't the worst things in the world!
