Commercials

I was thinking about the time I spend on the internet or watching Netflix lately, and the time I don't spend cleaning house. Then, I remembered something from my childhood.

My mother let me stay home alone at a young age. My stepdad's aunt and uncle lived next door. My stepdad's uncle worked with him so they would carpool to work each day. My stepdad's Aunt was a home-body. So, she kept an eye on us from next door.

She never came over, but if we were outside, she knew it. If I took a stroll in the woods behind the house (which was against the rules), mom would know about it when she got home. Or, if I rode my bike to my cousin's house two miles down the road, she'd know.

I didn't know she was watching. It wasn't until I was grown that my mom let me in on the secret. LOL. I guess it's a good thing (for her) that we never got hurt. I'm sure the secret would've been out sooner.

Anyway, as all children who are privileged to be home alone while mom was at work are, I had chores to do. My "chores" was to clean the house. That included washing dishes, cleaning my room, vacuuming and picking up the living room. Cleaning the bathrooms, making mom's bed, and washing, drying and putting away the laundry. And, occasionally, having supper ready when they got home -- or at least started.

While Mom and Benny worked, I enjoyed listing to all of her LPs and 45s. (For the younger generation: those were those giant CDs with grooves in them that we'd place on a turn table with a needle that made the "grooves" make sound...) -- oh, and the 8-track tape collection (forget it, there is no describing those, unless you know what a cassette tape is...). When I wasn't listening to music (and pretending to be a star) I was watching television. We only had three channels back then (3, 6, and 12 -- ABC, NBC and CBS). My favorite show came on at noon on channel 6, "Days of our Lives." written by McDonald Carey. "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives...." LOL.

I learned, after a few times of being chastised for not getting my chores done, that time management was a must. I had to allot myself time to clean the house. But, I didn't want to miss my soaps, or Gilligan's Island, or Good Times, or Leave it to Beaver later. I learned to welcome commercials.

Commercials would last anywhere from two to five minutes, at least every ten to fifteen minutes. That's 20 minutes of cleaning time for every hour I watched TV. That's about an hour and a half of cleaning time before mom came home. As clean as our house stayed, that was plenty of time to even do extra cleaning, like taking all the dishes out of the cabinets and organizing them every so often, and cleaning the walls...I actually did that.

Mom never thanked me. She refused to thank me for doing my job. "it's what you are supposed to do. I don't get thanks for what I do for you," she would say. But, one day, I was satisfied when my step-dad noted, "Shonda is really doing a great job cleaning lately, isn't she?" and Mom was forced to agree, without actually "thanking" me. LOL

So why do I find it so hard to clean house today? I think it's because Netflix and the internet has no commercials. (Not to mention, the challenge of being appreciated isn't there). I guess I'll have to start using a time clock.

It's an idea.

I never thought I'd ever see the day when I would say that I miss commercials.