When I was younger, I feared Saturday's.

Most children looked forward to the weekend, two days of freedom only inhibited by bedtime and regular meals. But for me, Saturday's were hell.

My mother, emotionally erratic and prone to the most ghastly mood swings I have ever indured always chose Saturday to clean the house. Cleaning made her ugly, which she chose to take out whomever happened to be in the room. Which, frequently, happened to be me.

Being a rather fragile child mentally, I remember spending many Saturdays holed up in my room crying because I had been yelled at. I was generally delegated the job of dusting the living room tables and the hutch in the dining room, and sometimes cleaning the bathroom. The problem was that if I helped her clean, she would yell because I hadn't done it right. And if I didn't help, I was yelled at for not cleaning at all.

Jesus, no wonder I ended up with an anxiety order and depression!

Nowadays my mother is lazier and I'm smarter. She doesn't clean half as much as she used to, and I stopped listening to her 7 years ago.