Chores

How to Get Your Kids to Stop Bitching About Doing Yardwork:

1. Ask politely.
2. Ask politely again.
3. Ask firmly, but politely, for the ungrateful turds to pitch in once in a while around the house.
4. Give up on politely. Tell the little buggers to put a wiggle in it.
5. Remind the little darlings that if it weren’t for your paycheque, they’d be living in a cardboard box in a tram station somewhere.
6. Try to keep your eye from twitching when they come back with “at least if I lived in a cardboard box in a tram station, I wouldn’t have to do yardwork.”
7. Move on to “Listen, you little shit. Shut your smartmouth up, put on some goddamned gloves, stop lipping off, and Get. To. Work.” Remember to grit your teeth.
8. Take a BIIIIIG breath.
9. Hold it.
10. Hold it.
11. Hold it.
12. Hold it.
13. Hold it.
14. Exhale. Try not to fall off the roof because you’re feeling very faint.
15. Begin raking up sticks.
16. Agree, begrudgingly, to let the kids use rakes also (note: you’re not ACTUALLY begrudging them the use of rakes. You just want them to feel like they’re getting special treatment).
17. When you have a sizeable pile of sticks raked up, hold your hands up over your head, rake in hand, and announce, “WITNESS, O STICK GODS, THIS VENERABLE PILE OF STICKS, WHICH I OFFER UNTO YOU…”
18. Grimace when your kids steal some of your stick pile and toss it in the wheelbarrow.
19. Rake up the slightly smaller pile of sticks. Repeat Step 17.
20. Repeat Step 18.
21. Rake up the much smaller pile of sticks. Announce: “WITNESS, O STICK GODS, THIS IMPRESSIVE PILE OF STICKS, WHICH I…”
22. Grimace as kids put sticks in barrow.
23. Rake, announce: “WITNESS, O STICK GODS, THIS SMALL PILE OF STICKS…”
24. Grimace.
25. Rake. Announce: “WITNESS, O STICK GODS, THIS PALTRY PILE OF STICKS…”
26. Grimace.
27. Rake. Announce: “Stick dudes. Look what I did.”
28. Walk away dejectedly and begin raking elsewhere. Repeat Steps 17-27 until all the sticks are raked up.

It is *very important* that you ensure the kids know that you are *utterly dejected* that the pile of sticks they have made from dumping the wheelbarrow is MUCH more impressive than ANY of your own stick piles. Find a single stick, offer it to the stick gods, wait for a while, then slink away, defeated.