Badge of a (Possibly Bad) Painter

You make assumptions when you see fingers missing on a construction worker. Perhaps this person isn’t the most careful, detail-oriented, cautious of workers. You might assume the same thing when you see dried paint splotched on a painter.

I hope there’s more forgiveness if that paint is primer. Primer doesn’t stretch and roll off your skin in sheets like latex. Its job is to cover, seal and protect and that‘s exactly what it does, no matter what the surface. I have it on my hands, my arms, and between my toes; my reward for wearing my daughter’s flip-flops. I had a big smear in my left ear, which hurt when I scratched it out. That’s going too far.

Primer-decorated hands are kind of cool. When I handed my money to the barista at Starbucks, he said, “You’ve been busy.” He asked what I was painting and that led to a discussion of how he once had a job clearing out houses.

“We had to wear heavy masks. We’d fill up dumpsters full of stuff you don’t even want to know,” he said. “When people die, they leave years’ worth of crap piled up everywhere. I got paid good money to clean it up. This job smells better though. There’s only so much of other people’s crap you can stand.”

If I had paid for my Americano with clean hands, I wouldn’t know about this interesting job.

Charlie, Dylan the skateboarder son, and I sit in Barnes and Noble looking at big stacks of home improvement books. I’m looking at books on how to pick out paint colors. Less than four hours ago I was in Home Depot, buying paint. I can’t stop thinking about it.

It took me a minute to pick the colors and about an hour to get Home Depot to mix them up. What was I thinking, going in there on a holiday? We had to drive around a while before we could find a parking spot.

I picked two colors which both ended in “butter.” I love the texture of paint. It’s like cake batter, even if it‘s cheap. It’s so sensual, paint. Anything named “butter” is going to make me drool. If it’s a choice between “Lemon Butter” or something named, “Inky Pool,” “Martian Skies,” or “Earth Glaze,” guess which one wins?

Charlie ran around Home Depot selecting items I couldn’t name nor describe what you’d use them for while I waited to order my paint. I saw him walking by so I stopped him and said, “Hey, what do you think?”

“How about this one?” he said, pointing to a chip a few shades darker than the one I’d picked.

It was called, “Sweet Marzipan.” That sounds even better than, “Lemon Butter.”

“The other color is really nice,” he said. “Pumpkin butter. Yum.”

“Now I have to do the hard part,” I said. “Get someone to help me.”

It was going to be more difficult than I thought. Even though I’d been the only one at the counter for about ten minutes, no one’s noticed me. The paint mixer clerks all had their backs to me, helping ornery customers in the pick-up area.

Other wannabe paint customers start to wait, too. Instead of standing in line behind me, they stand next to me on either side. Three other groups of customers, a kid and her Dad, a couple, two older ladies, all stand next to me on either side. They all lean in on the counter with “me first” faces.

I remember I’m wearing a cross, so I’m going to have to be nice. Christians already have a lot of bad press. I’ve had people cut me off on the road and flip me off. After they pass I see their fish stickers all over the back of their bumper. I can wait.

Charlie left to pick up grout. When the paint mixer clerk turns around, he sees the Dad and kid and says, “I’ll be right with you.” The little girl must have been wearing the best “help me” face.

Another few minutes pass until the paint mixer turns around again. He says, “Okay, who’s next?”

I really, really want to be a bitch and say, “me!” I look at the two sweet older ladies, the Dad and the little girl, and the couple who don’t appear to speak English but smile eagerly and tightly hold onto a couple of dozen paint chips.

Nobody says anything. “I think I was,” I say. There’s still bitch potential, so I look at the others waiting and make sure they don’t start to cry. We’ve all been here way too long. I notice the ornery customers on the pick-up side trying to flag down the paint mixer clerk again. Everybody smiles, letting me go first.

After at least an half an hour, my paint’s ready. I wait as the paint mixer opens each can to dap the lid with a dot of color. Both colors look so good I want to lick the beaters. I can’t wait to get home and put color on the wallsS. It felt like Christmas.

I’m flipping through a book with pictures of lots of strong colors on the walls. This gives me confidence I’m doing the right thing even though I make color decisions based on how hungry I am. “Paint is undoubtedly one of the easiest, least expensive ways to make a dramatic impact in any room,” this book (HGTV’s Before and After Decorating) says. Maybe that’s why I love paint. It’s easy and it’s cheap.

My sister, who also painted my Dad‘s apartments with me when we were way too young, once called me up only to tell me about painting window trim. “I thought only an hour or two had passed, but then I hear my kids run into the room. ‘They weren’t supposed to be home until 9:00 PM,’ I think. I notice it is 9:00 PM. I painted for eleven hours straight,” she says.

After waiting nine months for a chance to paint, I was ready. I was so excited I couldn‘t sleep. Even though it’s a holiday and normal people don’t wake up at 6:30 AM on holidays, I did. I felt like I had four cups of coffee. I can’t wait.

My job was to prime the ceilings which were popcorn-free, thanks to Dylan, and textured, thanks to Charlie. Priming isn’t the same as painting as you don’t get the excitement of color. It’s still fun, though. Primer covers everything like snow. The world looks better with a coating of either one.

I didn’t think Charlie textured the ceiling thickly enough, but I didn’t say anything. We agreed before we started doing fixers that the jobs were divided like this: I tell him what to do and he does it. If I start to tell him how to do things, I may lose my job. My Grandma used to ride around in her wheelchair at her rest home, yelling orders to workers doing construction and painting. She was so old she could hardly speak. Sometimes you need to know when to let go.

Once I started rolling, I was glad I kept my mouth shut. The ceiling was perfect. The awful seventies popcorn-textured ceiling which was once a highly productive cobweb factory was soon becoming something beautiful. Somebody might want to actually buy this place when we’re finished.

Charlie set up the tile saw in the driveway and spent the day tiling around the fireplace. Anytime you’re outside in this cul-de-sac, it’s an invitation for the neighbors to start chatting, which they did. They’re pretty normal neighbors for a suburban ranch-style cul-de-sac. The more I live here, the more I think we’re the weird ones.

We do things like leave the windows wide open so people can hear us sing really loud, really badly. Charlie and I make up our own words to already weird songs, so I’m sure there‘s a conversation or two at one of the neighbors’ about this. Charlie and I also jokingly call our kids names that other parents say behind their kids’ backs only after an argument.

Dylan’s hiding in his room, avoiding his lawn-mowing job. Charlie notices he’s not outside so he yells, “Dylan, you bastard!” Since our windows are open, the neighbor across the street picking up yard trimmings can hear perfectly. As soon as Charlie says this, she stops and turns around to look our direction. Charlie starts laughing.

He hasn’t learned his lesson, as Dylan sits next to him here at Barnes and Noble and pokes his leg with his pen. Charlie says, “Dylan, you bastard!” again, loud enough for the nice people at the tables behind us to stop and look up.

What the nice people see is Charlie kicking Dylan, and Dylan trying to draw on Charlie’s leg with his pen. Charlie’s older than me, so I’m not sure I should tell him to knock it off. I’ve already told him what to do plenty of times already today. I pretend I don’t know them and return to paint books.

Why do paint books have pictures of rooms with so much crap in the room? I don’t care how pretty your bed looks, this is a paint book. Leave the trinkets off the bathroom counters; I can’t even see the walls on some of these photographs. Am I starting to sound like my Grandma?

I’ve decided I need a third color to add to the pumpkin and marzipan. The third color has to be that Martha Stewart green, so it won‘t have a food name unless it‘s “Bread Mold Green.” From my research here, I’m sure the house won’t sell if it doesn’t have at least one hallway covered in that cream of pea soup color. It’s in every book, this bread mold green, so I guess I‘m required. I don’t care; I just want to sell the house.

I break this news to Charlie. “No. Please!” he says. “That’s a room I won’t be using.” He hates green and this green, especially. “Isn’t that the same color as the dining room at Alcatraz?” he says. I think it is.

These books make painting look so neat and orderly. While I cleaned up and put everything away in the kitchen, Charlie got me set up to paint. I didn’t notice until too late, when they were covered with primer, that he’d used the kitchen curtains I specially made to tarp over the TV.

“You must be glad you married me,” I said. “Some uptight person might have been annoyed at using custom curtains for drop cloths.”

“They were right there, handy. I noticed I accidentally sprayed texture all over them anyway,” he said. “At least I covered the TV this time.”

A woman sits down next to us and plows through about ten decorating magazines. She leaves them next to me so it looks like I’m one of those bad people who don’t put their reading material back. At least she left her newspaper.

On the front page, I notice the word “paint.” A woman, Gretchen Shauffler, who lives nearby, created an upscale line of paint and she‘s the Monday Profile. People have told me about this woman, that she’s even more obsessed with paint than me. She makes some beautiful paint, my friends say, but it’s quite expensive so obviously I‘ve never tried it.

I’m tired of looking at pictures of rooms so crammed with furniture and crap that I can’t see the walls. I want to see paint. I might as well read about paint if I can‘t see it in the paint book photographs. It only takes me to paragraph three of this article to realize I’m reading about a woman after my own heart.

Ms. Shauffler, was working with Miller Paint to come up with her new line of paint, Devine Color. When it came time to put the paint to the test, Ms. Shauffler ignored the roller and sheetrock placed there for this purpose. Instead, “. . . she flipped the lid from the can and plunged her hands into the maroon liquid.”

I sure won’t make assumptions about people with paint on their hands anymore. Why didn’t I ever think of doing that?

A little help? [] 12:27:19 PM