Oh, cooking! I forgot about that. To some extent that did not feel like a chore to me. I like cooking and often hung out in the kitchen, helping peel potatoes and carrots and learning other basic skills from about second or third grade on. When I was in fifth grade my mom had a job whe would not get home from until after 6 pm, so she would call home in the afternoon and talk me through starting supper. Otherwise it would be wayyyy late. By the time I was in high school I could plan and cook an entire balanced meal. Mom still planned most of the meals, but there were certain ones that I would take over simply because she tended to burn things. And by the time I was in 12 th grade any time my parents invited guests for dinner I planned and made the meal.

I liked cooking too, and my grandma was terrible at it, although she taught me the basics! I liked ironing, too, because we did it in front of the tv. In fun reasponsibilities, I planned and hosted family Christmas Eve! I decorated, planned and cooked the meal, invited people, cleaned the house etc. it was funny, because I am by far the youngest person in the family. I also did the Christmas cards. This is possibly because no one else in my family cared about Christmas. This was 6th grade through high school, I think.

I think some of the reason I didn't mind chores doesn't exist today. I was bored. You couldn't always be on the phone with friends, which was the only way to communicate. There were only so many books available, and lots of time the tv was boring. I just used to pretend that I was a maid, or in Little House, or All of a Kind family or something.

I'm left to conclude some of my coworkers are idiots. I left VERY EXPLICIT directions to do one task. Like, all they had to do was cut and paste, just change one number every time. Which I gave 4 examples of. Near as I can tell, they didn't do one damn thing right. They even made up shit. I cannot.

Oh, my bad. I assumed that after working with VMS, unix and Linux systems for 25+ years, it would be self evident that when the instructions say 'go to directory xxx/yyy/zzz/' you know that means

cd xxx/yyy/zzz

JESUSFUCKINGCHRIST

And I have no idea why they managed to think they needed to do this one completely unnecessary thing. At least it didn't fucking break anything.

I really don't want to do this status meeting with them; I'm seething and baffled.

{{sarameg}} sorry about the idiots.

I went ahead and added back my oldest friend on FB. Our moms were neighbors and pregnant at the same time. So friends from before birth. She messaged me this morning, "how can we not be friends", so I accepted her friend request, told her I was up for the summer and asked how she and family were doing. I ignored the whole subject of why she hadn't been on my page anymore. Of course if she says anything positive about the pile of human excrement in the White House I may have to give up.

Chores: My mom was much more specific with things like exact chores and allowance. I was pretty loose. They had to take care of their own rooms and clothes, but for the shared chores it was random. If something needed to be done I asked. #1, please vacuum the living room. #2, please unload the dishwasher, they always had chopping, peeling, stirring, draining type assignments as I cooked. DH would have them help him with the outside chores. It was always just expected that when asked you help. When things got behind I would make a list they had to split evenly. The first one on it could pick the easiest 4 of 8 items as the early bird award. They crossed off and initialed when an item was done. They would scramble to pick quick.

Another family had set allowances, and deducted if specific chores were not done. Kid would say they didn't get the dishes done in time and lost a buck or whatever. I was not that organized.

I don't remember having much in the way of organized household chores aside from picking up after myself and vacuuming the basement, but I helped with my dad a lot and did whatever he told me to. I was very school focused so I remember having hours of homework every night and I think my folks prioritized me concentrating on that. And I managed to pick up how to do laundry and cooking for myself despite Mom actually handling those things—it was kind of a surprise to her that I immediately leapt into self sufficiency upon moving out.

As a pre-teen mowing was the bane of my existence. I hated the heat and getting covered with sticky grass bits,and we had a very uneven weirdly shaped yard with a lot of trees. But when I was 13 our electric lawnmower shorted out, and rather than buying a new one my folks hired the hot teenage wrestler from down the street to cut our grass. Best summer ever!

I am having high-class problems: there's a lunchtime thing with Cirque du Soleil, but I have meetings before and after, so if I go, when will I eat lunch???