LABOR INTENSIVE

Today is Labor Day. Time for me to write about my worst job ever--cleaning the house of Mr. and Mrs. Superintendent of Schools once a week when I was 15 years old. Have you ever had a job for which you were just not well-suited? Well, housekeeping was certainly not my forte. About all Mama Bore ever made me do of a domestic nature, besides babysit with the younger sibs, was take out the trash and put away the clean dishes and laundry after she’d done the washing. I was ill-prepared, but I’d try anything for a few bucks.

The good news was: the Supers' children had flown the coop into adulthood. The bad news: it was a two-story house, with five upstairs bedrooms connected by a long hallway, all hardwood flooring that I had to attack with the dust mop, PLUS I had to take a dust cloth to ALL the baseboards. Downstairs I dusted furniture and the staircase. Maybe vacuumed.

There were also miscellaneous jobs, like polishing the silverware (at the Bore household, we were “stainless steel only”). I once had to do the Super laundry but couldn’t figure out how to get the damned washing machine turned on. I should have called the Mrs. at work to ask for instructions, but I feared her wrath and ridicule so much that I washed everything by hand. What a blockhead!

The absolute worst task assigned, however, was ironing…not so much the idea of ironing but what I had to iron that was the real turn-off here…Mr. Super’s boxer shorts! Hell, my brothers wore briefs and those went straight from the dryer to the dresser drawer. I’d never touched boxers before, let along ironed them. Why would they need to be ironed in the first place? Who was going to see them anyway? What a waste of my precious energy! And, I was certain that if Mr. Super knew a teeny bopper was ironing his undies, he would flip. After that day, I could never look him straight in the face…all I could do was stare at his crotch and envision those goofy checked boxers!

I can’t recall how long I lasted with this job. I think maybe I forced Mama Bore to call Mrs. Super and tell her I was needed at home…to count clothespins or something else of equal importance. I am happy to report that I have never since polished silverware, washed clothes out by hand, or, praise God, ironed boxer shorts. In fact, boxer shorts are not even allowed in the Flaming Bore household. There are no ifs, ands, or butts about it!