The Dreaded Household Chore

If you could eliminate one household chore from your life permanently, what would it be?

Not put it off. Not hire someone to do it occasionally. Not magically make it easier.  I mean gone. You would never have to do it again.

For me, this is an easy one.

Grocery shopping. Hands down.

I loathe grocery shopping.

And it's not just the actual shopping. It's the whole process.

First, I have to figure out what we need. This sounds simple enough, except somehow the answer is always, "I don't know. What do you want to eat this week?"  How am I supposed to know what I want to eat five days from now?  I can plan, but then on the day I don’t have an appetite for that meal. (Or feel like making it).

Then comes the list.

Then the trip to the grocery store.

Then pushing the cart up and down every aisle while trying to remember what we came for, looking at the list a hundred times, avoid buying things we don't need and figure out how to make our grocery budget stretch a little further.

These days, there's an added challenge. We're only buying things made in Canada (or elsewhere in the world except the US), which means paying even more attention to labels, where things come from and what we're actually putting in the cart.

And then there's the part that really gets me.

How many times do I have to touch the same groceries?

Let's take a carton of milk.

It goes into the cart.

Then out of the cart onto the checkout belt.

Then from the belt into a bag.

Then the bag into the buggy.

Then the buggy into the car.

Then the bag from the car into the house.

Then everything comes out of the bag and gets put away.

That's a minimum of seven touches for one carton of milk!

And that's assuming I don't drop it, change my mind, or discover that I've put it in the wrong place.

Multiply that by an entire cart of groceries and suddenly I'm wondering why grocery shopping isn't listed as a workout at the gym.

And let's not forget the checkout.

There's something strangely stressful about standing there while the groceries are being scanned and trying to keep up with everything coming at you.

Bag this.

Bag that.

Why are the apples in with the bread?

Where did the yogurt go?

Did we pay for everything?

Did I remember the eggs?

Did I actually need three kinds of cheese?

And then comes the final insult.

Paying for it.

After all that work, they actually expect me to hand over money. And not a small amount of money either.

Then, comes my absolute favourite part of the whole experience, I get to take everything home and unpack it. (Which, of course, is another opportunity to touch every single item again.) - oh, and don’t get me started on trying to fold up the reusable grocery bags and putting them away!

By the time the groceries are finally put away, I feel like I've completed a small logistical operation.

And what do I have to show for it?

Food.

Food that we're going to eat and then have to buy again next week.

It's an endless cycle.

Buy food.

Put food away.

Eat food.

Run out of food.

Buy more food.

Repeat forever.

Honestly, I'd rather clean toilets - not that I want to clean toilets either.

So there you have it.

If I could permanently eliminate one household chore from my life, I would never have  to shop for groceries again - ever!

No hesitation, no second thoughts. The grocery store and I could part ways amicably, and I would never look back.

Now it's your turn.

If you could eliminate one household chore from your life permanently, what would it be?

Cleaning? Laundry? Cooking? Yard work? Doing dishes?

Or are you, like me, ready to say goodbye to the grocery store forever?

What chore you'd happily never do again!