Did something dumb today.

[sawguy21]

I can't think of a job I dislike more than painting. Although steam cleaning a tractor covered in frozen pig poop is a close second.

[Old Greenhorn]

I think I would rather clean your tractor. ;D :D

 Your thought reminds me of when I was a kid working with my Dad on some particularly distasteful task (to me at that time) and I would complain about how miserable the work was. He would just keep working along and remark, "Well, it still beats the heck out of picking cotton." Apparently, that was his high water mark for 'less desirable' jobs.  I'd say "I don't know what that's like' and he would say 'hopefully, you'll never find out', and we would just continue on working.

 I never did find out...yet.

[WDH]

The bad thing is that I have actually picked cotton . 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, which is worse?

[WDH]

I was about 12 or 13 years old.  I spent the money for what I picked to buy a half gallon of ice cream from the country store where the cotton was sold.  Eating all that ice cream made me sick.  My Momma found out and whipped me.  Overall, it was a definitive learning experience . 

[Old Greenhorn]

I note that you did not answer the question. :D

[WDH]

Not sure if it was getting sick or getting the whipping.  Have to think about it :D. 

[doc henderson]

No wonder you do not like picking cotton!  It led to your vomiting and getting a wippin.

Johnny Cash - I Never Picked Cotton - Bing video

[Don P]

 :D
Roy Clark was singing in my version 

[doc henderson]

I listened to both, and I liked the do what you do do well, song also.  
I agree this is not the version we listened to on the mono am radio laying in the back window going down the highway as a kid.  that is where the speaker was.

[Don P]

Back in the days before positive child restraint  :D, my perch on the long road trips "home" was a quilt on the rear window deck. The girls had a pallet made across suitcases in the floorboard and the rear seat. When I-95 opened up it cut 16 hours in half. When we arrived, well, there's another song, "Make me a pallet on your floor". It was about 4 quilts deep, 7 cousins long, and an equal covering on top across the living room floor in front of the glowing Warm Morning stove.

[doc henderson]

never picked cotton - Bing video

for Don! ;)

[SawyerTed]

I've picked cotton for a day and I've primed tobacco (hand picking the ripe leaves off the plant) many many days.  Priming tobacco has the same bent over posture as cotton picking.   If you haven't worked in tobacco, there is tobacco gum on the plants that is nearly equivalent to pine pitch in consistency.  Tobacco gum cakes your hands and arms and it combines with the red clay dirt that splashes on the leaves when it rains.  

That tobacco gum has a high percentage of nicotine in it.  Getting "tobacco sick" from the nicotine is worse than getting seasick.  The chances of overdosing on the nicotine in the tobacco gum is increased when there is dew on the leaves.  If you aren't a tobacco user it is worse.  Add in the heat and that the nicotine absorbs through the skin and it is a "just go ahead and shoot me" kind of feeling.
 

I'd rather paint.....  :D

[SawyerTed]

Back in the days before positive child restraint  :D, my perch on the long road trips "home" was a quilt on the rear window deck. The girls had a pallet made across suitcases in the floorboard and the rear seat. When I-95 opened up it cut 16 hours in half. When we arrived, well, there's another song, "Make me a pallet on your floor". It was about 4 quilts deep, 7 cousins long, and an equal covering on top across the living room floor in front of the glowing Warm Morning stove.

My parents had a backseat playpen for my sister so she rode there.  My brother and I were stacked like cordwood in the back of the Chevrolet station wagon among the cooler and suitcases etc. 

[WDH]

I rode laying on that back seat window shelf many times in the days before OSHA and Political Correctness. 

In the summer 1976, I worked in Eastern NC as a Forestry Intern for Weyerhaeuser in the New Bern area.  
One of the guys that I worked with would come to work every Monday morning with yellow stained hands from working tobacco.  

[WV Sawmiller]

   By all rights none of us should be alive today what with riding in the rear window, in the back of pick up trucks and some of us have even been known to lick the cake mix bowl in which raw eggs were in the batter! Child restraints? That was a good tongue lashing (or worse).

[beenthere]

Or just jump on the running board in the 40's to ride around the farm and to go to town. Hang on to the door with an open window. 
Sit astride the headlights on the front fenders and carrying .22 or shotgun to knock down a critter or two at night. 

[thecfarm]

 some of us have even been known to lick the cake mix bowl in which raw eggs were in the batter!    

I still do that to this day.
Raw molasses cookie dough is the best!!!! Forgot, rolled in sugar!!!!
Well chocolate chip raw dough is right up there too.

[Resonator]

We always got to lick the beaters when mama was makin' cookies for us kids.
It was even better if the mixer was shut off first. 

[Nebraska]

Quality control in cookie dough making is really important. 

I think I'd about rather power wash in a hog barn than paint. Back in the day it paid some tuition and room and board..No cotton up here.

[Don P]

I've been painting the new windows for the job in the shop on weather days, forever. Finally got the sashes through the first 2 coats yesterday and started on the frames. I turned the meter off a long time ago, I'm no painter  :D.

Now you've made me think of getting the ice cream dasher 

[doc henderson]

I like to run a roller with an extendable handle.  My neighbor likes to cut in and is a retired schoolteacher, now prof. painter.  we trade favors.  I also love airless sprayers, to use but not to clean.  I operate a mean aerosol can as well.  cannot beat the finish.  once you have a flat surface.  on an oak bench, might as well brush it a few coats to fill the grain heavier than the other parts.  after filled, then light sand and a coat of aerosol.

[firefighter ontheside]

We used to ride everywhere in my grandpa's 1970something truck with a camper shell on it.  In my mom's big station wagon I used to just lay under blankets in the back on the way home from the bowling alley, but there was a steel floor to keep me safe.

[Old saw fixer]

     Simultaneously with hitting the brakes, Mom's right arm would fly out to the side.  Early child restraint system.  I remember it was a while before the folks bought other than a two door sedan or station wagon, no children by the doors.  

[firefighter ontheside]

Oh, yeah, mom used to do that to me too.  Here, my little arm is gonna keep you from going thru the windshield.  Yesterday, I let my 11 year old ride in the front seat of the subaru for the first time.  We adjusted the seat belt shoulder height so that it was not on his neck.  His weight was enough to turn on the airbag, as their is a little light on the dash that indicates if it is on.