Oops & Housework

I apologize, readers, for not including the prompt for last night. If I fail to give you on, and you want to continue writing, grab an idea out of your own muse. Or pick an object in your home to write about. The prompt last night was: housework.
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Dust bunnies have found a home beneath my bed. Spiders freely weave their lacy webs high in the corners of my rooms. If unexpected guests drive up, I shove the clutter under the sofa, open closet doors to shovel it in, and hope no one wants tl sit a the dining room table which hides the basket of unfolded laundry. Why do I do this? If there's one thing I have come to abhor in my old age, it's housework.

I want to be at my computer writing. Or in the garden pulling weeds, trimming, or gathering a bouquet. Walking to Jack's Pond with my camera in hand makes me happy--and beats scrubbing toilets any day. Cooking and baking give me a certain fulfillment. Cleaning house puts me in a dark mood.

It must have begun in my early childhood, this aversion for household chores. I was the eldest of five children and, as such, babysat, washed dishes, helped with the enormous Monday wash using an old wringer-type machine, learned to cook standing on a stool, and lost part of my childhood buried in responsibility.

Southern women (girls) in my time were reared from the cradle to the grave to be wives and mothers, and to be subservient to men. Good women were satisfied with that. They shouldn't long for college or think of a career. That was the future planned for me which meant I would be tied to the kitchen, the family, church, and my husband's best interests for a lifetime. That meant housework forever.

It didn't quite work out that way because I was an avorous reader and figured out there was a different world out there for women who dared step out of the picture frame of Southern womanhood. I attended college. I had a career. I bore two children. Of course, I still did the housework.

Today, I am lucky. The kids are raised and gone. I long ago got rid of the Southern redneck and married my soul mate over thirty-three years ago. He could care less about dust bunnies and wheels the vacuum cleaner around with gay abandonment. We forget about the dishes and go for a walk. We've been known to vacation for a month and let the weeds take over the flower garden. My sweetie allows me to put housework way back on the burner.

It's only guilt or guests that pull me back in line--where I discover the house really doesn't look too bad after all. My imagination runneth over, especially when following a prompt.
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Prompt: Quote: "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" (Satchel Paige)