Friday, August 8, 2008

Paint By Numbers

A combination of grace and endurance, military precision and athletic excellence. The pinnacle of artistic achievement. No, I'm not talking about today's opening ceremonies of the Olympics, which were awesome. I'm talking about painting the spare room so our oldest daughter can move into it. Since we're unable to really go anywhere during my two week vacation that started last Sunday, we're getting some stuff down around here. Painting her room is the project I started today.

The folks who lived here before us painted Batman and Spiderman on the wall of that room since they had a little boy. We always thought it was pretty cool so we just left it. Now that we want to move her in there (the plan is for both of them to be in there when the baby comes) Batman would probably be a bit scary for her. Little three year old girl wakes up in the middle of the night and sees some pissed off dude in a black cape on her wall, the only question is whether I'd be woken up by her scream or by her diving headlong into our bed. I'm betting I'd be stirred awake by the scream and then jolted awake by her head slamming into my face, stomach, or groin. That's why we've decided to go with a princess theme. Some purple and pink on the walls to go along with some decals. It should be good. It reminds me of when I painted her nursery though.

I painted it while my wife was still pregnant with her. Remembering a time when we didn't have kids, hard to believe. Anyways, I decided to paint it secretly as her Christmas present. Pause while you go ah. I was working an overnight shift of 11 pm to 7 am back then. So when she'd go to work in the morning I'd get to work painting. I'd paint until about noon or so and then go to bed. She'd get home around 3:30 or 4 and I'd have to pretend I hadn't been up all morning. By 6 or 7 I usually dosed off on the couch though and she would get mad that I was sleeping on her time. I guess she figured I was up all day playing video games or something, not an unrealistic assumption. A month or so of that before Christmas morning and then she felt horribly guilty for getting mad. It does beg the question, how did she not know an entire room in her house was being painted?

Truthfully, I'm not sure why she wasn't suspicious. I made sure to put a lock on the door to that room and hide the keys. I expected that to require some explaining but it didn't. If anything I might have told her I was hiding presents in there I think. Ok, but what about the paint smell? There wasn't any. I kept the window open and that seemed to get rid of any smell, not to mention any heat that had been in the room. There were a few times I thought I'd get caught though. Like the time the dog came in and got some red paint on him. When she asked I just said he got into her craft stuff and it was finger paint. "Can you try to be more careful with that stuff?" Can't believe she bought it. Really can't believe she bought it the second time. The other big one was the time I spilled a little paint on myself. Ok, by a little I mean I dumped a large portion of a gallon of blue paint over my hands and arms. I was trying to mark out a circle on the wall so I used the can. I put it up against the wall and soon found out I hadn't secured the lid on tightly. I was left with friggin' smurf hands. After washing them for what seemed like forever I dodged another bullet. Paint mishaps run in the family though.

One time Mom was painting a room and fell of the stepladder she was on. She could have landed anywhere but she landed ass first onto the paint can. She just about crushed the can and was left with a huge welt on her buttcheek. That still doesn't win first place for paint injuries in our family though. Dad was working offshore on one of the rigs. He was doing some painting, a nice bright yellow, when the ladder he was on gave way. He crashed to the deck creaking his jaw. What makes it really funny though is the paint poured all over him. Yep, my bright yellow dad had to be helicoptered to the hospital for his broken jaw. The best part was he got an award for it. Every year someone at that company went accident free they got a safety award consisting of a little plaque. That year they gave him one that had yellow paint all over it and they called it an artistic achievement award. So thanks to them I've got a lot of leeway as far as what can go wrong.

This time it shouldn't be as tough as the nursery was. I don't have to do it in secret. I won't be sleep deprived. It won't take a month since it's not a mural this time. And I don't expect to wind up in a hospital covered in paint. Time will tell for sure though.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I thought if anything you painted the rocking chair...