....and do you have any sneaky tips for subtly getting out of them / palming them off on to other family members?

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2000

Answers

Oh, I hate them all. The bathroom and vacuuming have to be the worst, specifically because I always fight with the vacuum and lose and fall on my face.

Solution: $30-50 for a housekeeper.

I admit it I am so not domestic but I love to cook.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2000

I hate cooking. I will happily pay to eat out, or heat up frozen food, or eat cereal, or anything.

I really hate to vacuum. I just don't ever do it. When I lived by myself I'd force myself to do it every once in a while. Now, the man in my life does it when he thinks it needs it.

We actually divided up some of the chores based on which ones we like to do and hate to do. He does the garbage and a bunch of other cleaning, I do the laundry. We alternate neutral things like the kitchen floor. I will never be as tidy as him, but when he complains about it I can always point out how long it's been since he's been inside a laundromat. Case closed.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2000

I hate cleaning the bathroom. Just hate it.

I don't like vacuuming, either, or dusting. However, I like to cook (although cooking for one is not too enjoyable), and I don't mind doing laundry - I like the way the clothes smell when they're fresh out of the dryer. I kind of enjoy grocery shopping.

I once had a boyfriend who didn't mind doing laundry but who loathed folding clothes; he was always trying to get me to do it for him (we didn't live together). Maybe if he'd offered to clean my toilet....

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2000

So glad you asked! Changing the cat litter is my #1 most detested household task. And I have four litter boxes...bleah. With multiple cats, you need more than one litter box or the little ingrates turn your tub into utter nastiness. No thanks.

The only plus here is that the litter boxes are in a closet with outside access. There's a cat door into this closet off my bedroom so the animals can go "out" without getting outside. It makes hauling the boxes out, hosing them down and dumping the non-pareils that much easier. And the house doesn't stink of litter box.

The only thing I hate worse than the cat litter is cleaning the toilet. The rest of the household tasks are no big deal...but the toilet just makes me gag even tho it's pretty clean.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2000

Does Christmas shopping count? Seems like a chore and I hate it. For me it's a secular holiday anyway.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2000

I can't believe no one's said dish-washing yet. I hate that the most. I also dislike cleaning the bathroom and dealing with the garbage cans in any way.

Vaccuuming's okay, sweeping's kind of therapeutic, and grocery- shopping rules.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2000

Cleaning the bathroom. I feel ill and gag frequently when I do it.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2000

As a kid I hated doing dishes with poisonous hatred. Now with a dishwasher, I hate to get the whole schmear of dishes, pots, pans, best china, etc., etc., cleaned up.

Bathrooms, any part of cleaning any thing in them, the extremely claustrophobic tiny, hemmed in hard to move around in space.

Evasion ? A man like me can be so slow, sloppy and a danger to breakables that the only problem is pacifying an angry wife.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2000

All of them. I'm a lazy slut. Unfortunately, I'm even too lazy to get a cleaner organised, and I really like tidy flats ... just as long as I don't have to do the tidying.

Tristan and I are slobs. We don't pick up after ourselves, we leave things lying around ... but we're not dirty, because that's gross. Except, of course, for the bath, which sometimes goes for ages between cleanings. Horrible. It makes me shudder just thinking about it.

Occasionally one of us will have had enough, and will begin frantically tidying. It's usually when the other one can't be bothered, and leads to all sorts of high-jinks.

The only thing that works for us is to invite people around for dinner (poor bastards - I'm the worst cook in the world - I hate it, unless it's baking Anzac biscuits). We're not so far gone that we don't feel shamed by our messiness, so this forces us to clean up.

-- Anonymous, April 20, 2000

I don't mind cleaning the bathroom, although I do so with embarrassing irregularity. I'm with Gwen, though -- I fucking hate washing dishes. I was so happy to get a dishwasher, and now I'm bummed, because our dishwasher sucks so I still have to wash the dishes before I put them in. (Wash as in use soap and a scrubber, not just rinse them out.)

I also loathe mopping the floor, more than I can adequately express. Mostly, though, I hate tidying up. I hate finding a place for all of our random crap to go instead of the buffet or the kitchen table or balanced on the pile on top of my desk. That is by far my least favorite chore, worse than cleaning the cat box.

-- Anonymous, April 20, 2000

I'm a miniaturist and avoid all chores that require B I G arm movements, such as sweeping and vacuuming and and ironing and dusting and making beds. These are the things we were supposed to have delegated to robots by now. I'll happily wash any amount of dishes or (my own) clothes, though. Those are small.

-- Anonymous, April 20, 2000

"Tidying up" is impossible. I just have too much stuff and a small bedroom. My floor has stacks of papers on it right now that I just have nowhere to put them.

-- Anonymous, April 20, 2000

I wouldn't mind the actual cleaning so much, if I just didn't have to put away all the clutter first. By the time I pick up, I'm worn out and no longer in the mood to vacumn and dust. I redid my family room myself--painted walls and ceiling, tore up yucky carpet and laid a fake wood tile floor. It is now clutter free. However, there are 10 boxes in the garage labelled "to be sorted" Half of them, though, are mysterious wires, cables, and gadgets my husband had accumulated and I'm waiting for his son to come over and tell me what's what with those. Now, I have emptied my spare bedroom of clutter and ripped up its carpet. Of course, my living room is full of all that stuff.....fabric scraps and patterns from sewing, craft supplies from when I used to do crafts (20 years ago), wires, silica sand, and containers for drying and arranging flowers, and on and on. I did thrown away all those many, many leftover flower and vegetable seeds dated as far back as 1978 though. I hate to refill that nice empty room with all that junk now, so I suppose there will be more boxes in my garage with the label "to be sorted" I am my own worst enemy as I have the "clipping disease" and clip from newspapers and magazines, but never get it filed. Sigh! And, really, I'm getting better....I no longer clip recipies and I have thrown away huge bags of paper junk over the last few months...it didn't all get stored away in boxes.

-- Anonymous, April 20, 2000

That clutter problem sounds a lot like my house! When I say I have stuff I need to do around the house, I mean putting away clutter. Forget cleaning, after putting stuff away for a while I'm exhausted.

I don't even consider grocery shopping a chore, I like it so much.

I am neutral about dishwashing but I won't do it after every meal. I like to wait till a lot of dishes pile up, then feel like I've accomplished something. We have a dishwasher now, though.

-- Anonymous, April 20, 2000

I forgot, one chore I really hate is making up the bed, I mean when you put fresh sheets on. I don't know why. I've always hated this chore.

I make the bed every day because he doesn't care if it's made and I do (I'm one of those people who has to have all the blankets line up at the top and no wrinkles in the bottom sheet).

-- Anonymous, April 20, 2000

It would be so much quicker to name the chores that I DON'T hate. I love to cook, and actually enjoy cleaning the kitchen sometimes. Sometimes, I say. There are nights when the dinner dishes sit on the counter until the next night because I just can't muster the strength to face the disaster after a trying day. Then there are mornings that I wake up early and there is nothing I want to do more than scrub down the kitchen. It's a very satisfying job, and I feel oh-so-sanitary when the kitchen gleams.

I don't mind tidying, as long as I'm allowed to stash things.

I have no problem with folding clean towels. In fact, I love it - when they're still warm and smell good. I think it's the fact that there is nothing easier to fold than a towel - no ironing is involved, no hangers, just easy folding. Ahhhhhhhh. Now, every other piece of clothing I despise washing and folding and starching and ironing and carrying from one room to the other. I hate the smell of the laundry basket after a few rank outfits have been residing in them for a while. Just grosses me out.

I love to re-organize closets and pantries.

I love to clean the glass on the storm door.

I love to clean out my car, but even though it's fun for me, I still only do it twice per year it seems.

That's about it. Every other chore is pretty much the bane of my existence. We try to invite overnight company once per month so that I am forced into Monica Geller mode (I go way overboard on the cleaning when guests are coming) because otherwise I would let the duster, vaccuum, sponges, carpet cleaner, soap scum remover, window cleaner, toilet brush, broom, mop and paper towels all rot away to mothing.

It is my vow that if we ever become anywhere even close to wealthy that we will get a maid. Period. It has to be done. Otherwise, housework will be the death of me.

-- Anonymous, April 20, 2000

Yup. I hated weeding as a child, so when I grew up I never planted a garden (not sneaky, but effective). I hate dishwashing, too. I spent a year in an apartment without a dishwasher, begging my wife to let me buy one. Now I insist on the machines in any new apartment.

-- Anonymous, April 20, 2000

The one chore I really love is making the bed, mostly because the cats and I make a game of it. Two of my little heathens love love love changing the sheets. They roll around in the dirty ones, pounce on errant corners, attack the pillowcases as the pillows fly out, etc. Putting a new sheet on means they get to hide under the clean sheet and then chase/pounce on the wrinkles that are being smoothed out. They love this so much and are obviously having such a good time it makes me laugh.

I also like filling my nose with the scent of clean sheets. MMmmmm!

-- Anonymous, April 20, 2000

Let's see. Tonight I spent an hour taking out the trash and doing the dishes. Then I need to spend a few more hours trying to find places to stash things. (My mother is coming tomorrow and throws shit fits if the house hasn't been cleaned for her) Oh yes, AND do homework.

Blech!

Oh yeah, making the bed sucks too. I always feel like "I fought the bed and the bed won."

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

I converted to the duvet style of bedmaking ten years ago and have never looked back. Now there's only one sheet to tuck in, and only once, after laundry. I still wish I could get a consultant to come over and do it for me, though.

Clutter ... we need another thread here ...

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Your wish is my command.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Worst has to be the litterbox. Made a deal when we got the cats, that it is not my job, but every once in a while if odor is too bad it has to be done. Silver lining: DOing the boxes out of the blue earns big bonus points. Not usr eif it is worth it though. All others jobs aren't too bad. Weird one is sitting down and paying bills. Have the money, just dont like to do it.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

The only chores I'm really responsible for these days are spending all day Sunday doing laundry (I swear, my husband changes his underwear 14 times a day), getting groceries by myself on Saturday mornings, cleaning out the litter box every morning, and vacuuming once or twice a week. We hired a cleaning lady to come in every Thursday and do the bulk of the cleaning, which includes dusting, mucking out the bathroom, and changing sheets. We pay $60 a week, and it's SO worth it.

Today's my last day of work, though, and I'm trying to convince my husband that we need to have the cleaning lady still come every week. Actually, I'm hoping that if I don't mention it at all, he won't notice that we never cancelled the cleaning service...

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

I have these weird cats who don't want to play when I make the bed. They wait till it's made then walk around on it. They've been this way since they were young.

Some time back he took over doing the litterbox because I do such a poor job of it. It's not my fault that I have hardly any sense of smell and forget about it.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000