I am just now gathering the rest of the Christmas ornaments, wreaths, and odds and ends, putting them away in a decent manner. My favorite cleaning gal is coming tomorrow and I don’t want her having to work around any clutter. Fred says I clean the house before the cleaning help arrives. 

During stressful times, we stabilize by doing comforting things. One is eating, preparing a good meal, gaining weight! Another is being with family and friends, (yes, I know, social distancing) and another is organizing our homes, sifting out things we realize we will never need or use, re-positioning certain objects to make the home look nice, and so on. It’s a common thread among us all.

And then, there’s all that darn daily upkeep!

I thought, “I wonder which cleaning projects others dislike the most? I polled Facebook friends. What a great response!

One lone soul, Sue, confessed immediately that she likes to do housework. She reminds me of Neil Armstrong’s “small step” on the surface of the moon. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind!” You go, girl!

Here’s the polled results. Guess which chore is the most unpopular? Dusting. Dusting?! Who dusts? I like those swisher feather things that just move it around! 

Second place was cleaning the refrigerator, a popular complaint with many. Why? Because we ignore it until it’s pretty rank. Just a wipe here and a wipe there doesn’t work. But look at it this way. There are treasures in the refrigerator if you are willing to empty it: moldy sour cream, partly used jars of pickles and salsa, missing in action leftovers, hairy mac and cheese, sour milk, and lots of penicillin.  

On to the survey now. Pretend the categories are horses in a horse race.

“Dusting” is in the front, leading by a head. He is the undisputed leader. His mane is flying, emitting tufts of dust and sediment. But “Refrigerator” is close. If “Refrigerator” keeps up the pace, she will wipe out “Dusting” and clean-up the reward. She plays dirty.

Third place is a fight. “Toilet-bowl” is running in water off to the side, and he is fighting to hang on because “Unload” (the dishwasher) is unloading on him! The dislike of cleaning “Toilet-bowl” and the dishwasher crowd are cheering. Dishwasher unloading is pulling out a bit. 

“Washer” and “Sox” are several lengths back, but definitely contenders for fourth place. “Washer” supports the laundry task, including folding  laundry. “Lint-Trap” is often forgotten so he didn’t even show up for the race. Laundry “Sox” is in a category of his own. There should be two of him, but the race could only find one. 

There are several dark horses here. Never did we think they would even be in the running, but they are nevertheless. “Sewer pipes” had few investors. He is way back about six horse lengths. Even though David G. answered the survey saying he doesn’t like cleaning sewer pipes, refrigerator-cleaning is much more common. We will not bet on “Sewer-pipes.” He’s a long shot.

Some of the entries barely finishing the race need honorable mention. Cleaning “litter box” was a definite complaint, followed by “basement” which seldom gets any attention. These two chore-horses are panting hard, but losing ground quickly. The smell wafting from “Litter box” definitely estranged him from the other horses. “Sewer-pipes” was avoiding him as well.

An interesting survey. Some loved “sorting” laundry, and dislike “Ddishes,” while one complained about “knees” which is scrubbing the floors on one’s knees. “Dishes” and “Sorting” fell in the middle of the race, but “knees” never made the cut.

I hope you all make sense of this. It was fun taking the survey and thank you to all! 

Judi Tabler lives in Pawnee County and is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune. She can be reached at juditabler@gmail.com or juditabler@awomansview.