Hating saturdays

Hello lovely people, hope yiu all are enjoying a beautiful and spendid saturday.

Well, during my childhood, I have never been excited about Saturdays. As a matter of fact, I feel quite depressed before going to bed on a Friday night. Saturdays are the days specially set aside for general cleaning around our houses. This is a good thing to do once in a while no doubt, but it could really be tiresome especially when the workload turn out to be more than expected.

As early as 8: am, mom would storm into our rooms and wake us with her shrill voice . Sometimes, when me and my elder sister might still pretend to be asleep. The next thing we would feel is some cold water on your face

This alone would make you jump up and sit upright immediately and the water in your ears might cause you great discomfort for the rest of the day. So, the wise thing to do is to try to summon all the strength and wake up as soon as you hear Mama's voice.

There was a time mom sent an older cousin to go wake me up, and without even calling me out first, this girl emptied a jug of water on my face. I was so furious and if not for mom that stepped in, I would have harvested her two front teeth!

We don't usually get to eat our breakfast early on Saturdays, I think this is very common among alot of households in my country. We would commence the washing of all the clothes in the house as soon as its 9:am, sometimes earlier. The clothes of our younger siblings are always the most dirtiest, merely looking at them alone is enough is kill your spirit and drain every energy in your veins.

My daddy's clothes are the easiest to wash because they are always not as dirty as the other clothes and sometimes me and my sister would fight over who would wash daddy's clothes while deliberately ignoring and even stepping on the clothes of the younger children.

Sometimes, mom would sit ouside while we wash. She keeps herself busy cutting vegetables , separating little pebbles from the rice before cooking. Every now and then, she would look up from her work and bark an order , telling us to repeat the washing of a particular shirt or trouser of a younger sibling again after it has been transferred to a rinsing water. Mom would say " bilkisu, you call this washed? does that shirt looks clean in your eyes?" Mom always insisted that we wash each clothe twice in seperate nuckets before rinsing. According to her, that was the best way of washing clothes and that's how she was taught by grandma.

This was really frustrating for me and I would curse and scream at that particular sibling for playing too rough and getting his clothes all dirty .

"At your age, you don't know how to wash clothes properly, is this how you will be washing clothes in your husband's house?, lazy girl". Mum would reply me.

Washing the toilets was no fun. After cleaning it up to the best possible way, mom might still complain that it was not done properly. " Don't you see how sparkling white the toilets in TV adverts for toilet cleaners look?, why don't you try to make ours look the same way. By the way, its still the same toilet cleaner we are using too". Mum would say.

At this point I will feel like crying, "mom, can't you see that those toilets used to advertise toilet cleaners are new toilets?! Its just marketing strategy ! I would scream in my mind.

All morning, dad would still be on his bed listening to his radio since saturday was a work free day as mom command her troops outside. Once in a while, Dad might come outside and want to send one of us to go buy bread or radio batteries for him, mom will say to him: "This children don't like assisting me o, they want me to be doing all the work by myself all the time".

I also noticed that the plates and pots to be washed on saturdays looked dirtier and more difficult to wash than any other days and I wondered why and how comes. They even seemed more in numbers than those of every other day.

Sometimes, when I am almost done washing the dishes, out of no where, mom will just suddenly bring out one big old, dirty pot that I have not seen since when I was two years old and tell me to wash it too.

" what kind of life is this?" I would scream out. Mom would also mutter something about daughters that don't like helping their mothers as she walks back to the kitchen to continue her cooking.

Most times, I, my sister and cousin would engage in gossiping about other people. This regular interactions while we busy will make the workload lighter for us to bear. But if there's light, we would hardly speak to each other so that we can quickly finish our work and go watch those interesting TV dramas that are shown every Saturday.

Those amazing soap operas are about the only consolation for a hectic Saturday. Watching TV while eating Saturday's meal which feels more delicious than that of weekdays is really cool .

The meal soon becomes tasteless when the electricity goes off in the middle of a fine movie. When this happens, I feel so heartbroken to the extent of leaving the meal half eaten. Then after raining some cool curses on the power company, i would walk reluctantly to my room to get some rest and sleep that my body really wanted at the time.

The only comforting and pleasant things about my Saturdays when growing up is when there was a wedding ceremony to attend. If a relative or neighbor or family friend is getting married on that day, then it would be a very exciting and happy day for me. Mom would have no choice than to postpone the environmental sanitation. She would also help us dress as she wants us to look very beautiful so that other people could see how good she takes care of her children.

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Thank you so much for taking your time to read my Saturday ramblings,I really appreciate. I would also like to use this opportunity to celebrate @Princessbusayo on her 28th birthday, wishing you all more greatness and love in your new age.

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