A chat with my philosophical neighbor

Murrmurr

Murrmurr

SF VIP
Location
Sacramento, California
Jesse lives a couple houses down, and he comes over to yammer with me once in a while. He's a few years younger than me and, like me, he was a single dad, and cooked and did housework and all that. A few days ago I asked him what was his least favorite chore, and told him mine was dusting because it's the least impactful and the most useless.

Jesse: Well, all household chores are useless, in a sense. You ask yourself, why am I washing dishes and clothes when they all get dirty again? Why do I dust when I know the dust is coming back? Why do I have kids when I know they're going to grow up?"

Me: Excuse me?

Jesse: Think about it, Frank; there was a time when you had kids for a purpose, and that was: so they'd grow up. You could hardly wait 'til your kid was old enough to use a plow knowing they'd eventually take over the farm...or your business or enterprise, whatever it was. And, by the time you reached your Golden Years, you knew they were equipped to take care of you; their ultimate purpose.

These days, you're afraid they'll grow up, because a good 60-70% of them are just gonna shitt on ya.

Me: Well, that's certainly food for thought, Jesse, but doesn't make me hate dusting any less.
 

Murrmurr said:
Jesse lives a couple houses down, and he comes over to yammer with me once in a while. He's a few years younger than me and, like me, he was a single dad, and cooked and did housework and all that. A few days ago I asked him what was his least favorite chore, and told him mine was dusting because it's the least impactful and the most useless.

Jesse: Well, all household chores are useless, in a sense. You ask yourself, why am I washing dishes and clothes when they all get dirty again? Why do I dust when I know the dust is coming back? Why do I have kids when I know they're going to grow up?"

Me: Excuse me?

Jesse: Think about it, Frank; there was a time when you had kids for a purpose, and that was: so they'd grow up. You could hardly wait 'til your kid was old enough to use a plow knowing they'd eventually take over the farm...or your business or enterprise, whatever it was. And, by the time you reached your Golden Years, you knew they were equipped to take care of you; their ultimate purpose.

These days, you're afraid they'll grow up, because a good 60-70% of them are just gonna shitt on ya.

Me: Well, that's certainly food for thought, Jesse, but doesn't make me hate dusting any less.
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sadly... he's got a very good point...
 

mrstime said:
We have a neighbor whose wife is in poor shape, he admits he doesn't mind most of the chores but he hates having to vacuum.
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see I hate vaccuming.. not because it's a particularly hard thing to do, it's that it kills my back doing the stairs. ..so what I do is.. have one each small cordless Vac's..upstairs and down.. and every day I do a quick vac with the little one in all the areas I'm using that day... and then Once a month I get the Cannister Vac out, and Vac all the stairs.. and all the other rooms thoroughly. It's the only thing I feel I can do, if I had to Vac using the Miele every day I would be in a lot of pain..
 
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Beezer said:
If your children grow up to sh!t on you...just look in the mirror...you were the one who raised them.
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True, but I think that was more true before about 1990. That's shortly after we accessed the world wide web. Kids have too much influence from too many sources, imo.

Jesse was kind of joking, though (as usual). He's got 2 grown kids. His daughter is doing great, his son struggling with drugs.

But even way before 1990...I'm one of 5 kids raised by the same parents who were really decent people; they had 3 kids in a row, and 15 years later, had 2 more.

2 of us never used drugs.
2 of us became alcoholics.
2 of us had severe drug addiction.
2 of us finished college.
Not every "2" on this list are the same 2.
 
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Gary O' said:
My lady is a dust freak
I think she picks them outa the air with a tweezer before they land

Living up at the cabin drove her nuts
Wood stove
Pumice 'soil'

Me, I like dust
It has a purpose
It makes an outline where things belong, like my coffee mug
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Having also lived in a cabin, I can cohabitate with dust and be totally fine with it.

Years ago, when I had a truck, I took a lady friend's mom to a furniture store to shop for a new couch, and while she was looking at these glass-front cabinets labeled dust-free display hutches, I remember thinking to myself "Those had to have been invented by a mountain man's wife."
 
The fix is Merry Maid a couple of days a month. ... (y)
You raise/sell water Mellons of Tomatoes to pay her wid.
____________________________
 
Parents still have to love and cherish their children, even if the kids shit on them. And the reason is the kids are the ones, who can sign the damn commitment forms.
Reality sucks, and it exists, just like dust.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
Parents still have to love and cherish their children, even if the kids shit on them. And the reason is the kids are the ones, who can sign the damn commitment forms.
Reality sucks, and it exists, just like dust.
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Apparently, parents don't have to cherish their children. There appears to be a recent increase in filicide cases.
 
Sometimes I think a Rubbermaid House might be ideal. Just hose it all out periodically.

Or maybe one constructed like an automatic dishwasher: put in soap, set the timer, and leave for a while as it runs the wash and dry cycles.
 
dilettante said:
Sometimes I think a Rubbermaid House might be ideal. Just hose it all out periodically.

Or maybe one constructed like an automatic dishwasher: put in soap, set the timer, and leave for a while as it runs the wash and dry cycles.
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That sounds kind of fun. But then, I was the kid who'd sit in the laundry room, enthralled by the spin cycle.
 
Hey, kids do have a practical purpose. I don't need mine to run the plow, but who else am I going to play Wordle, Connections, and Strands with every morning?
 

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