I painted the shit out of the first house I ever lived in....Thank God I didn't actually own it...
I was still dating Jerkface when I moved to Arizona, and he decided to move out here, too. I moved in January and he didn't graduate until May. While he was still finishing school, he gave me the responsibility of finding his furture home, painting it, and decorating it. Looking back, I can't help thinking...what was he thinking?!?! WHO DOES THAT?!?!
Based on the color of the tile throughout the first level, I decided to paint the living room, "Gentle Fawn" and the kitchen "Terracotta Terrace". I'd felt inspired one day when I was looking for lawn chairs at Walmart.
I was so excited when I realized that, for once, my impulsivity was being catered to! Looking up, I saw a large sign that said, "Paint Department". YES!!! I thought. I walked over, found my two paint colors and bought a few gallons of each.
I enlisted some friends to help me, and we were able to give both rooms two coats after one weekend involving hours of work. As I took inventory of our dwindling supply of paint, I realized that I was going to need to go back to Walmart for more if I wanted to even everything out.
Later that night, I headed back to Walmart alone. I approached the paint counter and was greeted by a young man in his early 20s. He was wearing a Phish shirt and ripped jeans. His hair was shoulder length, dreaded and every time he passed me, I was enveloped by the smell of clove cigarettes, patchouli and B.O.
I told him that I needed more paint, he nodded, taking out a giant 3 ring binder. He looked up the first paint color, then the second. After that, he got out two gallons of white paint. He took them both over to a large machine. He put them both under spout with a manual stopper that reminded me of the tap I had seen at bars on their draft beers. He added a certain amount of this color and a certain amount of the that color. Then he put a lid on both cans and pressed a button that caused them to start vibrating. After a minute, they stopped and he added more color.
As the cans were vibrating for a second time, another 20-something guy walked up. He had a short, spiky haircut and a goatee. He was wearing a red Marlboro sweatshirt and a blue Walmart apron. He stomped behind the counter with big Etnies sneakers.
"Dude, Brian told me that I'm supposed to like relieve you because I guess it's like time for your break or whatever."
Stinky dreads guy looked up from what he was doing, nodded his head, and started pulling his blue apron off, over his head.
"Cool. Thanks, man." he was already in housewares when he turned around and came back to the paint section. "Hey bro, I was mixing those 2 paint cans for this lady. I was on the 3rd...no wait, the 2nd cycle. Yeah...so just finish those up. They're like Fawn and something else. She knows." He pointed at me with his thumb as he walked away.
The new kid mixed my paint, rang me up and I headed back. I decided that we had spent so much time working on this that it didn't really need a full second coat. I would just go around and do "touch ups".
I climbed up on the counter and used a paintbrush to fill in a lighter spot I had noticed above the fridge. I swept the brush under the cabinets to fill in the textured white spaces that had been missed earlier. A dot of paint here, a smaller splotch there.
When I had finished, the walls looked spotty like a cheetah, but I figured it was because the new paint was wet. Once it dries, it will blend.
The next day as the morning sun hit the living room walls, I saw the same spots that had been there the night before. I ran up to the kitchen and touched it. It was DRY! I tried one of the living room walls. It was dry, too!!! How could this be?!? I got the same colors!!
Then I remembered the two burn outs that waited on me. Damn. I cried. I stomped my feet. I shouted belittling remarks about the Walmart employees. I vowed to boycott Walmart!
None of it made any difference. I still had to re-paint every stupid wall in the living room and kitchen. It was tedious and infuriating, but no one was going to do it for me.
So..you live, you learn...I learned a valuable lesson: Never decide to be frugal when the thing you are buying involves manual labor....NO AMOUNT of money is ever worth your sanity.
Now? When I buy paint, I splurge and hit up the Home Depot...and it's worth every penny, especially since I'm doing it for me, not some jerkface.
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