The Harmonizing Effects of House Painting

Outside my window, I can hear bad eighties music along with the chatter of unsupervised skateboarders with a couple of gallons of paint.  What am I thinking?

The vegan broke his skateboard deck so he needs money.  The Country boy doesn’t have school today so he spent the morning riding the rototiller.  Bobb, whose real name is John, owes us $90 for skateboarding shoes he bought when we went on vacation. 

All summer long they’ve been assigned landscaping duties.  All summer long they’ve worked for an hour at a time moving rock, digging trenches, and laying landscaping fabric.  All summer long, they came up with excuses to run off car somewhere more sedentary, like Taco Bell or Arby’s.  All the landscaping is done, so now they all come over straight from school wanting to work.

All they really want to do is paint.  Each other, from the sound of it.  And get paid.

When they worked on landscaping, they learned how to make a blow torch out of WD-40 and bark dust.  They constantly sprayed each other with the hose.  They spontaneously stopped moving river rock and held dance contests on the middle of the deck.

The landscaping is done when there are no remainders of bark dust and river rock on the driveway.  It seems like years since I ordered five yards each of bark dust and river rock delivered to our driveway.  When the vegan asked to do something for gas money Saturday, I said, “Pick a pile.” 

He picked the easier one, the lighter, fluffier pile of bark dust.  For an hour, we shoveled, competing to be the first pile-less person.  The vegan won.  No really, I did.  I don’t ever again have to nag teenagers to get out the shovels and wheelbarrow.  They say they’re excited to do anything else.

There aren’t a lot of jobs on a fixer with which you can trust three skateboarders.  Hanging sheetrock?  Installing cabinets?  Plumbing?  The potential damage seems too great. 

In my whole fixer-upper life I have never, ever let anyone paint.  I like it and it’s relaxing.  But there are only so many sunny days left and I’m pretty sure I won’t be spending all of them on the back of the house with a roller in my hand.  Am I ready to delegate?   My parents let me paint at age nine, and they’re much more obsessive than me.  How bad could it be? 

The window is right here.  It would be easy to look and see how they’re doing.  Instead, I listen: 

“Hey, dumbass, I was painting there.”

Laughter.

“Oh, sh*t.”

More laughter.

“Do it.”

“Jackass.”

“You’re so weird.”

Honestly, would you look?

The Country boy stayed over last night and started rototilling when he woke up.  “This is fun,” he said.  “Can I do the back, too?”

The back is a big mess.  When we had the house resided, we moved everything leaning against the back of the house to the “lawn.”  Most of this stuff is due for a one-way trip to the dump, but until then it’s on display all over the yard.  Rototilling isn’t an option until we paint the new siding.  The Country boy volunteered.  Before I could get possessive with the paintbrushes, he started helping set up.

“I quit Carl’s Jr. in the worst possible way,” he said.

“What’d you do?”

“I called for the manager five different times.  Each time he wasn’t there.  I told the shift supervisors I was quitting, but I never got a hold of the manager.  I just didn’t show up.”

“My ex quit a job once,” Charlie said.  “I got her a job with a friend’s business.  She left for lunch, said, ‘I hate this job,’ and never came back.  I had to call her boss and tell him.”

“Serious?”

“Yeah.  She was twice your age.”

I left him up on a ladder with a can full of paint.  When the skateboarders came home, they decided they wanted to paint, too.  They only earn money when they need something and they only work until they’ve earned exactly enough.  As soon as they all worked an hour, they rushed off to the skateboard shop.

They came back, realized they bought the wrong-sized nuts, made lots of juvenile jokes about nuts then went out again.  The store already closed so they returned quickly.

“You are skating tonight,” one of them said.  “We’re all skating together.”

They were somber and very serious; as serious as they should have been while painting.  They didn’t even make any nut jokes.

I can’t remember a time when they’ve all three planned to skate together, especially at Skate Church.  One isn’t a Christian and two of them are so driven they tend to drive each other nuts and not come around for a while.  Could the relaxing nature of house painting be having a healthy harmonizing benefit?

Bobb, whose real name is John, remembered he had a threading tool somewhere in the vegan’s car.  “I can rethread the axels on the way,” he said.  “Let’s go.”  He set up a little work area in the back seat.  They trusted he could do the job and raced out of the cul-de-sac. 

Thanks to me passing on the painting work, three kids are skating for Jesus tonight.  I’m going to have to do a lot of praying before I go out back and witness the results, though.

A little help? [] 10:55:10 PM