Painting Is Not An ED Commercial

You know the commercial that shows a young couple walking into one of those big box home improvement stores where they are excited and notably hand in hand?  They stand in front of the thousands of paint choices and laugh and giggle like they are picking out cupcakes.  They go home, still laughing, and start prepping some room for painting – maybe she dabs paint on his cheek and you wonder if this is an erectile dysfunction commercial because all those ED commercials are like that.  Some couple is “folding laundry together” and then a glance, which in the real world means, “get away from me” but in the commercial leads to sex.  But this couple isn’t having sex – yet – because they are having a great time painting.  And the room looks awesome.  They pull the tape off and the husband painted the Last Supper or some Andy Warhol work.  The couple hugs and smiles and are so proud of the really fun day the husband grinds up a bunch of Viagra and snorts it off his wife’s bosom. 

That’s bullshit.

When Bonnie and I were in our local home improvement store today she was holding two paint swatches which were dissimilar only in the way that a one additional drop of tan added to a fifty-five gallon drum of light tan paint would make.

“Which one do you think?" She said.

“I want nothing to do with this,” I said, “whatever.”  I was filled with despair.

What a difference, huh?

One of the things I hate about painting is that you have to prepare for it like a goddamn shuttle launch.  Curtains have to come down, cover plates have to come off, holes need fixed – then sanded, and baseboards need taped.  Furniture needs moved.  Basically you spend an hour doing things and you haven’t even opened your paint.  At least when you dig a ditch the very first thing you do is dig.

All I think about as I am carefully – and by carefully I mean not really giving a shit – painting is that when I am finished I will have another hour of work.  It's almost unnerving.  Those silly curtains and cover plates, well, they don’t reinstall themselves.  And then you have to clean the paintbrush.  Fortunately we have a slop sink in our furnace room that is perfect for this sort of thing.  Unfortunately, the furnace room is full of nine years of various boxes/accessories/Costco 300 packs of toilet paper so I end up straddling parts of a bunk bed and an old speaker while I clean the brush. 

And even then it’s not over.  All the photos and shelves and other stuff bought at those godforsaken parties your wife goes to has to go back up on the walls.

When I finally finished I wasn’t feeling joyous and what I felt like snorting wasn’t Viagra.  Forget The Last Supper, I was just happy I didn’t drip any paint on the carpet.  Those commercials really are bullshit.  Imagine that.

(Aged Parchment.  We painted the family room Aged Parchment.  Add a drop of tan to a fifty-five gallon drum of light tan.)