I did laundry, grocery shopping, gardening, cooking and painting from a young age, but never learned day to day cleaning things. I think mostly because my family didn't really do them. Or possibly because there were so many grown ups in my house it was invisible. But I am pretty sure we only washed and waxed the kitchen floor about once a year, as it involved moving furniture. I understand how to clean, but not when, and I find it frustrating that you have to keep doing it. Sometimes I would be sent away for a few weeks in the summer, and my grandma would clean my room.

Writing a check was the first thing we learned in bank teller training.

I find it frustrating that you have to keep doing it.

Oh yeah. I inherited that one from my mother.

Ellie just turned 8 and when she gets back for Hawaii, I'm going to start her on doing laundry for herself and maybe Sammy, or i guess whatever it takes to fill the washer. I got the soap pod things so there's no mess. I'm still trying to find a good chore for Frisco (5) that he can do well but is actually useful.

I also think they may have stopped teaching envelope writing in school, as well as formatting of a letter. My student workers almost always have to have it explained to them. To me, the funniest is when they address large envelopes in portrait, rather than landscape. And/or when they put the return address where the stamp goes.

Of course, I think I have told you before the problems they have distinguishing manila envelopes from manila folders!

And, one of them didn't know who DAVID BOWIE was!!!!

I have several times had to teach college students how to use a copy machine. Sometimes they pick it up instantly, but other times they seem totally boggled by the whole thing.

Of course, my parents hiring the smoking hot wrestler classmate of mine who mowed in his gymshorts and sneakers was at least as much cause for cheering as not having to do it myself.

What is it about lawn care guys, mine are always hot. (And I usually hire them over the phone or net.) I am paying current guy way too much, but am too lazy/non-confrontational to fire him.

I was super lazy and super messy as a kid, but I still picked up cleaning, cooking, laundry, mending, taking out the trash. I am still not the greatest at anything, but it's more a point of avoiding them than not knowing how to do them.

I wish I were handy, though. I've had a dripping faucet for about 8 months, and I bought the replacement (the cartridges are too corroded to remove and the faucet is too), but I find I am too chicken to do it myself, and too cheap to hire a plumber just for that.

Where I work, the professors also seem boggled by the copy machine!

I've had several attorneys over the years similarly boggled -- but I suspect at least some of them were putting on a show so I'd come an copy one damn page for them.

Yeah, it's way easier to seem boggled by the copy machine than to actually figure it out.

I'm not sure why, but I am so amused by the brouhaha over the new Secretary of the Treasury's signature. [link]

I also think they may have stopped teaching envelope writing in school, as well as formatting of a letter. My student workers almost always have to have it explained to them. To me, the funniest is when they address large envelopes in portrait, rather than landscape. And/or when they put the return address where the stamp goes.

But have they never received or sent mail? EVER? In 18 years? I never learned how to address and stamp an envelope in school, because we GOT MAIL AT OUR HOUSE, and also because my mom was a hard-ass about making sure we sent thank-you notes.