The Day

The Day

Ray walked into the kitchen, for a cold drink, when he saw his mother sitting at the kitchen table. First it was odd to see her sitting at all during the day. Second, the table was empty. She wasn’t eating, or drinking coffee or writing lists, or poking at her phone, or anything! This was something Ray had never seen in his fifteen years on earth. Panic hit.

“Mom! Are you alright?” he said, quickly rushing over to her.

She looked up, her face was calm, but tired looking, “I’m too old for this,” she said, quietly.

“What Mum? What are you too old for?” Ray asked quickly, as he put his hand on her forehead to see if she had a fever. She didn’t.

Looking up at him, she took a deep breath, then said, “This…” waving her arm in a circle in the air. “Every day I get up and do the same things… the same things! Everyday the same things need doing. I’m so tired of it all.”

“What Mum? What do you have to do every day?”

Mom looked confused… “Clean the house…” she said.

“You clean the house every day?” Ray asked, surprised.

“How do you think it gets clean?” she asked.

“I never thought about it.”

“Well. Now that’s interesting… so… lets change jobs! I’ll go out and do whatever you do for the next week, and you clean the house.”

Worried about her sanity, Ray agreed, sending his mother out to mow the lawn (even though that was not actually what he had been planning…) and he started cleaning. Ten minutes later he was done.

By the end of the week, however, Ray realized that real cleaning was not as easy as he thought.

From that day on, Mum’s life was much happier…