Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Dust: To add fine particles, or to remove them (11/13/25)
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TITLE: Saturday Dusting Duty | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marilyn Meiners
11/17/25 -
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The year was 1951. My brother was seven years older than I was, so he escaped any chore that involved dust, rags, or elbow grease. He was off working a part-time job. My sister was five years younger, which meant all the dusting magically became our responsibility—and by “our,” I mean mostly mine.
I hated the job because, in my ten-year-old eyes, the dusting assignments were wildly unfair. My sister got the easy stuff: the coffee table, end tables, bookcase, and piano. I got the hard stuff: all the dining room chairs (with approximately eighteen million spindles each) PLUS every baseboard in the entire downstairs. Crawling on the floor, stretching behind the sofa, reaching behind the bookcase and the piano—it all seemed like a lot of nonsense to me. But Mom said it had to be done, so guess who got the job?
At least if our work passed inspection (a process rivaling the FBI for thoroughness), we each got our weekly allowance of fifty cents.
And I wanted my fifty cents.
We hurried down the steps and stood before Mom, who handed each of us a clean dust rag already spritzed with furniture polish. “Now get to work, and no fighting,” she ordered.
My sister smirked her smug five-year-old smirk and headed straight to the coffee table. I stuck my tongue out at her—a perfectly reasonable response.
“MOM!” she shrieked. “Marilyn’s being mean!”
Mom marched into the room, spatula held high like the Statue of Liberty—if Lady Liberty were armed with kitchen utensils. “You two better settle down if you don’t want to get ‘what for.’”
My sister mouthed, What’s ‘what for’? I shrugged. I wasn’t eager to find out.
I debated where to start. Chairs or baseboards?
Eenie, meenie, miney, moe… The chairs won. Barely.
I began dusting each spindle, plus the seat and legs. It felt like dusting the Eiffel Tower one toothpick at a time. To keep myself sane, I started singing.
“I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart—”
“WHERE?” my sister hollered at the top of her lungs.
“STOP IT!”
“You two had better be getting along—or else!” Mom yelled from the kitchen.
Well, there went my singing career. So I resorted to talking to myself. Why do I have to dust these EVERY week? They don’t even look dirty. Who’s going to crawl down here and check? The ants?
My sister whispered, “If you don’t, you’ll get ‘what for.’”
“Oh, shut up,” I hissed back.
“MO—”
I glared at her. “Don’t you dare. Just do your dusting, and I’ll do mine. And don’t open your mouth again.”
She rolled her eyes in that special five-year-old way that suggests they’ve already lived a hard life.
Thirty minutes later, Sharon was finished. She sat on the sofa, watching me army-crawl across the baseboards with the triumphant expression of a queen surveying her loyal subjects.
I wanted to smack that smirk right off her, but that would guarantee Mom and her spatula would appear. Nobody wanted that.
Fifteen more minutes passed and I finally finished my portion. My sister and I high-fived, looked around the room, and decided this was the best dusting job in the history of dusting.
We marched to the kitchen and proudly announced we were done. Mom smiled, patted our heads, and went to inspect our work.
“Good job, girls,” she finally declared. She reached into her apron pocket and handed each of us two shiny quarters.
I ran to my room and dropped mine into my piggy bank. I was saving for something special—I just didn’t know what the “special” was yet. My sister did whatever my sister did. That was her business.
Years later, we both married and had homes of our own. I can honestly say my sister keeps her coffee table, end tables, and bookcase spotless. She learned well.
I, on the other hand, bought a ranch home. No fuss. No stairs. No spindled dining chairs. Baseboards? Absolutely not. I learned well, too.
And as for Mom’s spatula—it was retired from disciplinary service and now serves only to make chocolate chip cookies. Once we grew up, it never again threatened anyone with “what for” ever again.
Moral: Honor thy mother, especially when she cometh bearing a spatula.
Story is non-fiction
The song was written by George William Cooke
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I would have liked dusting and vacuuming but my assigned chore was the bathrooms which I didn’t like and I don’t remember ever getting an allowance.
I really liked the banter between the two sisters and enjoyed your take on the topic by bringing in some humor.