Let me just tell you something right now: I don’t paint.

I don’t paint walls or ceilings or nails or houses or gates or pictures or fences or mailboxes.  I’ve done my lifetime share of painting.

LIFETIME.

Back when I was high schoolish age, my family would sign up to go with a group from our church during the summer for mission trips deep into the heart of Mexico.  And when I say the “heart of Mexico” I mean NOT Cabo.  NO tourists. Speak Spanish or pray for an interpreter. The whole point of the trip was a part to a whole project – the project being to build a church from the ground up for a community or whatnot.

Twice we got to build the roof…which really wasn’t too bad.  I mean, I can hammer a mean nail and it was like free therapy – banging a nail into a piece of wood over and over.

Then, this one time, we had to paint a church that was already built.

And “this one time” was more than plenty.

I painted walls.

I painted ceilings.

I painted parts of some other structure.

I painted the metal ornamental gate surrounding the place.

And this gate…this damn gate…had more twisty-turny pieces parts that when you thought you were finished and walked around the other side to check your masterpiece – dammit – there were all these spots in the nooks and crannies you missed.

Oh, and the kind of paint we had to use?

Oil based.

Oil damn based paint that ended up all over the fracking place.

Every day I’d have paint in my eyelashes and my hair, up my nose and down my shorts.

Whatever it was we had to clean it off with smelled like gasoline, so basically we were all walking fire hazards in 100+ degree heat every day.

FAB.

Then…flash forward a few years and my ex-boyfriend (the same one who left me babysitting the damn goose (if you missed that, you can read about that little barrel of fun here)) found out that he had to move out of his parents five bedroom house.  They were living in Canada at the time while he was still in Georgia…long story…but the point is: the ex was charged with painting THE HOUSE to get it ready to sell.

Guess who got the shit end of that stick?

I painted walls.

I painted ceilings.

I painted garage floors.

I painted air conditioning grates.

I painted molding.

Then, because I was still stupid and naïve, I encouraged this same ex-boyfriend to apply for the college I was going to.

He did.  He got in.

That alone was probably one of the poorest decisions I’ve made in my life.  Anyhow, I was oblivious to the error my ways at that point, so we then made another terrible decision and moved into an off-campus apartment together.

And what was the first thing he said he wanted to do when we walked in the door for the first time?

“Let’s PAINT!”

Bloody. Hell.

And to make the process oh so much grander, what colors did he choose to cover the walls with?  The same walls we would eventually have to REPAINT back to the original color (white) when we moved out?

Off-white?  Cream?  Some other pale, non-offending color that would be easy to...wait, allow me to make sure this part is crystal clear: paint over when we had to move out?

Nooooooooooooooooooo…he had to have Nut Brown and some kind of blood red hue.  Both took THREE COATS to get on evenly so there weren’t splotches of “almost” color.

(Obviously, Nut Brown stuck with me, mostly because half the can of paint spilled in his trunk…so the paint can…you know…The joke is dangling right there.  Hopefully you caught it)

When the day came to do the “repainting” I was all, “Hell no.  First, you waited until the DAY BEFORE we are supposed to be out of the apartment to do this little project (story of his life) and second?  I’m done.  I’m not painting. Anything.”

Well, no.  That is not entirely true.  I painted a few curse words on the door, just so he’d know how I REALLY FELT, and then went to bed.

And since that day, I have refused to paint anything.  I told Tim from the word Go that I don’t paint.  I don’t care what needs to be painted or why.  I’m not doing it.  Ever.

Then…for Easter this year…I get this crazy stupid idea.

I SHOULD PAINT THE TRAY CEILING!

(Mental note: Self…WTF?)

So, one day while Tim was at work, I went and bought plastic drop cloths and found Tim’s old painting supplies and hauled the ladder up to the bedroom and started my project.

I taped.

And taped.

And taped.

The crown molding is white…so I’d be damned if I was going to get this sandish color paint on the crown molding.

I had this six inch roller and a sponge paint brush.

Mistake number one.

I didn’t check the amount of “touch up” paint we had in the basement.

Mistake number two.

I didn’t realize my ponytail was higher than my head.

Mistake number three.

I should have quit right then and there.

I didn’t realize the “knockout” design we have on the walls and ceiling SUCKS UP PAINT LIKE A MOFO.

I somehow forgot how painful it was to keep your arms in the air for an extended period of time.

I ran out of paint.

There were splotches everywhere because I ran out of paint.

I had paint in my hair.

I had paint all over my hands.

I accidentally painted a plant.

When Tim came home, I showed him my now half-finished-should-have-been-totally-finished “Easter present” for him.

Tim: You…painted?

Me: I have no idea what I was thinking.

The next morning, after realizing that neither Lowe’s nor Home Depot carried the brand of paint I needed, I had to go to a special store two towns away to get the paint.

It never rains here.  I mean, it does, but not very much.

The morning I went to get this paint?  POURING BUCKETS.  I haven’t seen it rain that hard here…ever.  But today…THE DAY I have to go out to pick up the paint I didn’t have enough of in the first place, it was pouring.

FAN-TASTIC

I was the only person at the store.  I brought the empty paint bucket with me, put it up on the counter and told the dude, “I need whatever this is.”

He did his thing, mixed the paint, handed me the full can and was all, “That’ll be fifty dollars.”

HOLD THE PHONE AND THE RECEIVER.

PAINT COSTS FIFTY DOLLARS?!?

I paid, perplexed, then when I got back to the car, I called Tim.

Tim: Hi babe.

Me: How much does a can of paint cost?

Tim: Forty or fifty dollars.

Me: Seriously?  I thought it’d be like, twenty, at the most.

Tim: Paint is expensive.

Me: No shit, Sherlock.

I got back to the house, put all the drop cloths back down again and then loaded up my new paint roller thing on steroids.

The day before, when Tim saw what I had used to paint the ENTIRE ceiling with, he was like, “Why didn’t you use the big one? No wonder it took you forever!”

And I was all, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Tim hopped up, went down into the basement and emerged a few minutes later with this monstrosity roller thing with handles and buttons and whistles a fat tube in the middle where paint is apparently stored and then squeezed up into the roller AS YOU PAINT.

I looked at him, then at the thing and then back at him and was like, “That is entirely too complicated for me.”

After dinner, Tim gave me a tutorial.  I was still convinced that either I would break it or it would break me.

Yet, here I was, sucking up the fifty dollar paint into the fat tube like Tim showed me.

“Ok…paint…thing….I’m the boss.  You’re my bitch. So just WORK, dammit.”

The paint roller is so big I didn’t even need a ladder.  I could stand flat footed on the floor and roll it back and forth on the ceiling, squeezing a special level thing whenever I ran out of paint.

After about three passes, my neck and my shoulders were screaming at me all, “Down!  Please!  Put us down!”

I muscled through a few more passes, whimpering.

The tube ran out of paint.

I lowered it and refilled, ignoring the pain.

Four more passes.

I am crying now.  The pain is searing down my entire body.

Three more.

I start bargaining with myself all, “Three more and then a break!”

Four more passes.

It took less than half the time to repaint the ceiling with my new steroid roller but it was a gazillion times more painful.  When I lowered it for the last time, my neck and shoulders started spasming all, “YOU LIED! YOU LIED!”

Then?  I had to clean out this paint roller thing with a million parts.

Cleaning that damn piece of equipment took longer than painting.

This…this is why I like the old school paint brush.

It’s not complicated.

It doesn’t hide paint.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO TAKE IT APART.

Yet, I still didn’t manage to pull all the levers and push the right buttons and speak the super secret password to open its hidden boxes to remove all of the paint.  When Tim came home, he spent another 45 minutes cleaning it out all, “I told you I would clean it!”

I looked at him, grabbed his hand and dragged him to the master bedroom.

I pointed up at the ceiling and was all, “Do you see that?”

Tim: Yes?….

Me: Take a good, loooong look. I want to make sure you are really – and I mean rheally – enjoying this temporary lapse of sanity because this?  This is absolutely the last time…and I mean THE LAST TIME you will ever see me paint.

Tim: But…I didn’t…technically…SEE YOU paint…

Me: That bastard didn’t paint itself.

So – what’dya think?