The Almighty List

You didn’t have to convince me that work was fun. I knew it wasn’t, except for one particular day. While my Dad was out working on the farm, my older brother Warren and I got into a water fight right there in the kitchen. Buckets in hand, we began dousing each other from head to toe. We were having the best time slipping and sliding all over the floor. When Dad returned the kitchen was now a shallow pool, and by the look on his face we knew we were in trouble. We’d been having so much fun, like most kids we were oblivious to consequences. Before Dad could say anything, right out of the blue Warren came up with a superb alibi, (actually a lie.) He said, “But Dad, we were just trying to clean the kitchen floor.” Brilliant! Why hadn’t I thought of that. I chimed in with agreement and Dad melted. After all we were just two angelic little five and seven year olds. We all three worked to clean up the mess, and miraculously Warren and I had been saved from whatever punishment we deserved.

When we moved into town, to avoid the inevitable squabbles that ensued around doing the dishes, Dad created a chart. Since there were four children, he made four categories. They were – clear the table, wash the dishes, dry the dishes, and free night, so one person always had a free night. To go along with this chart, he used an acronym, which was his motto for how tasks were to be completed. That acronym was QQE, standing for Quickly, Quietly and Efficiently. If there was ever too much commotion, complaining or arguing when it came to chores Dad could be heard to say “Come on now, let’s get this done QQE!”

At times both of our parents worked, and so in the summers our eldest sister Pam was put in charge of the household. Looking back, this was grossly unfair to her as Warren and I did our best to stay away, and not do anything she told us to do.

While Jana and Robyn were growing up they had a chore chart with bears depicting their morning and evening responsibilities. Both of them now have four year olds in preschool who are assigned a different chore each day in class. I like this idea. I believe that children who are given responsibilities learn to feel good about themselves in ways they couldn’t otherwise.

When we remodeled our house a number of years back, Jana and Robyn were pressed into service. They were out in the trenches putting in the sprinkling system, they were up on the roof helping to reroof the house, they pulled siding off the house with crowbars, and the worst job of all was they had to army crawl along the narrow crawl space under the new family room all the way around the edges to install insulation. I can still picture them with bandanas over their faces, long sleeve shirts and long pants, backing out of the crawl space, grateful to be alive. All I could think of was spiders and snakes, not to mention claustrophobia. I kept those thoughts to myself. It was during these long hard work days that they had a theme song, and it was “If I had a Brother…….” sung to the tune of “If I had a Hammer……” They’ve never been above hard work, including mowing the lawn, weeding, planting, housework etc, and I’ve always been very proud of them for that.

I personally do like a clean house, but have never been one to obsess about it. There are just too many other things to do. We have a joke at our house that if we see a cobweb I usually say something like “Oh darn, I missed that one on last weeks decobwebbing.” We have another joke. Once when Leland was encouraging the girls to get their work done, he said, “A tidy house is a clean house.” We don’t quite know what he meant to say, but it always sounded funny, so the phrase stuck and now we tease him with it from time to time.

I find that I can keep up through the middle clean and tidy, but open my drawers and cupboards, and you’d think the shuttle left from there! I soon realized where I developed this art after my Mother passed away. In sorting her things we found her photographs in a bathroom closet, and her sewing supplies in the kitchen, of all things.

Leland is very good to help me on the big projects – windows, blinds, walls, organizing, and nobody does the kitchen floor better than he does. He insists on doing it on his hands and knees, where when I do it, (and I emphasize the word when) it’s the mop for me all the way. The other thing about Leland is that he can do a job well in a very timely manner, whereas I tend to be slow because somehow I have an amazing ability to think the thing to death. He just gets in and does it! However I do make a very good assistant.

I would have to say that my personal philosophy on this subject is that when we all work together things get done.

One thing that has always helped me to be somewhat organized is to have a daily list. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to put a line through a completed task. Not too long ago I was visiting my Dad in Las Vegas. At one point he pulled out a little card from his shirt pocket and said “Who needs a computer when you’ve got one of these?” It was his little daily list. I smiled as I realized where I had probably picked up this simple little habit.




Hilda S. Gamette
April 27, 2010