The relief I feel now has no comparison. I look around the room knowing that when my mom comes home all she can say is, “Good job.” She can not tell me I forgot to scrub the floor, organize, the pantry, or put away all the dishes because I have finished cleaning the kitchen and have overlooked nothing. The chore I dislike most is cleaning the kitchen because cleaning this particular room requires the completion of many small tasks, each of these tasks involve much intense physical labor, and this chore takes a very long time to complete. Cleaning the kitchen is a gruesome battle between myself and the unclean kitchen. I am the victor only when I fully complete the chore.

One of the many reasons I hate this chore so much is the many smaller chores combined to make up the one huge chore of cleaning the kitchen. Before I finished the kitchen, the dirty sink smelt of moldy lasagna and guacamole so old the usually green vegetable was fully brown. The counter tops were covered in dirty dishes piled high in every corner. The oven was filthy from all the cooked-on food I would have to scrape off. All these tasks plus mopping the floor, rinsing the dirty dishes, putting up clean dishes, and washing all the soiled dish towels are the mini-chores I must finish in order to obtain a victory over the messy kitchen.

I scrub, scrub, and scrub until the kitchen floor is shimmering and sparkling in perfection. The blisters I have accumulated are the battle scars and the pain in my back is a reminder of the struggle I faced the make this floor perfect. The energy I must exert to accomplish this gigantic task is another reason I despise the unclean kitchen. I always feel sore after cleaning the kitchen extensively; I feel sore the way a soldier in the army might after a long day of extreme training. This chore is much more difficult than doing the laundry or even cleaning the bathroom because of the intense labor involved.

I look at the newly swept, mopped, and polished floor and I am proud until I glance slightly upward and realize that the dishes piling up in the sink and on the countertops all around it are the next task I must complete. These dishes will take at the least the next 30 minutes if I work as hard as I possibly can. After I finish the dishes, I still need to take out the trash which smells nauseating and is leaking some foul liquid, wipe the countertops off of any articles of dried-on or caked-on food., and put all the filthy dish towels in the washing machine. This all brings my third point, cleaning the kitchen takes so much time to complete. On the dreaded days that my mother tells me to clean the kitchen I must cancel any plans I have made and work until she is fully satisfied with my efforts.

The battle has been won, but the war is not over. I will have a continual obligation to the perfecting of the kitchen. The relief I feel now is fleeting, and soon enough the gruesome brawl will begin again. After this victory I am confident that I can overcome my unclean kitchen in the future.