Second July

03 June 2008

To share, or not to share

Hi all. I'm gonna start this post with a rant, so brace yourself.

Ahem.

Just minutes ago, my mom asked me to wipe the dishes dry before putting them into the kitchen drawers. Well, being the daughter with the "rebellious" mind, I asked her why should I when that is my bro's share of housework. The other regular housework he's in charge of is washing all our dishes for dinner. The irregular ones would be changing light bulbs and lawn mowing.

That was like asking the obvious to me because I knew the reason -- my brother always comes home late apparently from a group study stint he's been having for the past few days. Yes, from hours after sunrise til hours after sunset, he's out studying. Don't know bout you but that sounds serious to me.

Back to my mom, she doesn't want to 'expose' the washed dishes til late night because she's afraid lizards might crawl over them and therefore wasting the effort given to wash them in the first place. Plus, she claimed that my bro would sometimes forget about this responsibility of his and she would have to wash them all over again in the morning.

Then she added that I shouldn't be too 'calculative' over these housework, if you know what I mean, and shouldn't burden my bro with this 5-minute chore because he's been a good boy out studying til late night - he comes back at 11+pm. As if the chore might break his concentration on his exam any time, it's very fragile wan I know.

At that moment, my mind kinda split into two.

One said that it's just a tiny chore, I won't be losing anything (except time of course) by doing it. That, and I would appear less rebellious.

On the other hand, the calculative side of me said why should I do it when he wouldn't even fetch us to A&W even when we were already on the road just because he didn't want to go????? Is that 5-minute chore gonna kill him, while what he did after coming back from the tiring stint these days was skipping to his laptop to online or do god knows what???? Is breaking down the responsibilities on chores among the 2 of us too much ah???? Am I being too freaking calculative because I don't agree to do his simple share of chores??? Is this paragraph full of questions or what???

Of cos, I'm not saying my brother is not willing to do his work. It's just how my mom thinks. She thinks her son is studying his arse off while I'm the free one so I should be doing his share. Sharing chores? Why should she care who should get the things done? Also, I get the feeling that she thinks I'm bossing my bro around because I kept reminding him to wipe the dishes in the first place. And there she was, complaining to me that if the dishes don't get sorted at night, she would have to wash them again in the morning.

And I bet she doesn't know that even if my bro were to be at home, he would wipe them quite late ( around 10 sth or 11pm? correct me if I'm wrong, you-know-who), sometimes even after I've slept. If he doesn't even care about the timing, should I be the one who takes care of that? Before the group study stint, my mom never even requested that he should wipe the dishes earlier at nights he went mamak-ing. Why? Because her daughter is always at home anyway, why not ask her to do everything right? So convenient. Her son doesn't need to worry bout A thing, except taking care of them in their senior age of course.

And sad to admit, being calculative is what I'm good at because..I don't know, maybe maths is my favourite subject in school? So I say it's not worth my effort doing it for him.

Later I thought, what in the world then, would make it worth my effort? Hmm..first, if I can confirm for sure he's really studying til 11 something at night. I don't know for sure but he might be mamak-ing with his friends since it's group study after all. Chilling together after a hard day's work sounds tantalizing to me.

Secondly, is when my mom realizes that making sure my bro taking responsibility and does his part of chores is not being calculative. It's the principle of work distribution to me. Sometimes, he just needs a kick in the rear, then all will be fine. Like how the last post which I complain about how his life seem unaffected after the maid ran away worked. He became sweet and offered to wash the dishes after that. Coincidence? I can't say for sure lah.

/end rant

Will blog about my route to KL today tomorrow.

Labels: The Dark One

posted by: JYLing @ 9:19 PM

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