Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Is this all there is????

I moved out of my parents' home when I was 18 to go to college. I did go home for a few summers after that, but really, after that point I haven't lived "at home". I just did some disturbing arithmetic centered around that little factoid.

It's been 32 years since that date -almost exactly, since my leaving home would have been tied to the start of the academic year. That's 11,680 days. Here's the thing. There are 8760 hours in a year -a few more, actually. It might be 8766, because of the leap year thing. But really, let's think of the work-week type hours. That's 2000 hours.

If I've done even one hour of housework every one of those 11,680 days -and between making your bed, loading the dishwasher, unloading the dishwasher, fixing and cleaning up from a meal, wiping out the bathroom sink, and sweeping a floor somewhere- you've probably got an hour in on days when you think you've done nothing. So, VERY conservatively, I've done 11,680 hours of housework in that time. That's 6 years of housework, if doing housework were my full-time job.

Shouldn't I have something to show for it???? I need a house elf.

5 comments:

Sophie_vf said...

more evidence - as if we needed any! - that housework is indeed a Sisyphusian endeavor.

Lisa :-] said...

Why do I think you got involved in all these caluclations to avoid doing housework?! ;D

I Drink and I Know Things... said...

A VERY reasonable guess, but no -not this time.

I was actually at work, calculating effort for something else and started to wonder about percent-effort on other projects.

Patrice said...

Of course you DO have something to show for it! Imagine what your life would be like if you hadn't put that time in.

breadchick said...

Now I'm really depressed...

As if the drudgery of running the vacuum and doing the dishes wasn't enough, you've now given me, an engineer, a mathematical calculation of how much time I've wasted.

Does your house elf have a friend?!