I Hate Painting!

 

By G. E. Shuman

 

So, last time you allowed me to ramble on about how I’m not good at home repairs, plumbing, electrical fixes, etcetera. For some reason, a lot of people told me they liked that column, and I’m starting to think that nobody likes doing those repairs.

This time I’d like to delve a little deeper into that theme, homing in on what is my least favorite thing in the world when it comes to fixing up our house. That thing is painting. There is no doubt about it. Julie Andrews once melodiously sang: “These are a few of my favorite things.” Well, sorry Julie. Home repairs are not among my favorite things. Neither are raindrops on roses, or raindrops on the porch I’ve been trying to paint this week. (It’s been raining all day, today.) Painting is just the worst, least enjoyable thing I have ever done, (if you exclude my one root canal and those four or five colonoscopies.) That’s probably why the porch gets a regular coat of paint every fifteen years or so if it needs it or not. (I’m going to have my 68^th birthday soon, so I’m heading into the home stretch. Hopefully, this paint job will outlast me.)

I’m just not a painter. The day that I paint a room, a set of steps, or a porch without buying extra paint to make up for the paint I get on my clothes and body while doing the job, I may consider myself to be a painter, but I’m not holding my breath for that day. (I have been trying to paint that front porch this week and got paint on my skin in places I didn’t even know I HAD skin, much less that I had that skin exposed to my paint roller and brushes.) THAT will teach me to wear shorts when I paint.

What is the deal with painting, anyway? Who in the world even invented that stuff that we, for some reason, call paint? And more importantly, why did they do that? I only imagine that to have happened in a cave somewhere, sometime in the very distant past.

Wilma: “Fred, I’m sick of the color of these rooms. They all look like rocks.”

Fred: “What? Color? What’s color? They ARE rocks. They’re SUPPOSED to look that way.”

Wilma: “Well fix it, Fred, or I’m inviting my mother to come live with us in this rock-colored cave. Go out there and find something to change these rooms. I mean it Fred!”

And Fred went out and found something to splatter on the rocks to change their color, just as I splatter colored stuff on our walls and outdoor wooden things, and everywhere on my body except my eyeballs... so far.

One of these days that porch floor will dry up enough to paint, but I don’t care if that takes a while. The good part is that I’ve already done the porch railing and our four big round columns leading up to the second floor. Those columns are a pain. Round columns, round roller… you get the idea.

Chrissy, my oldest daughter, loves painting. She can paint anything, from walls to beautiful creations on canvas. Chrissy is a wonderful artist, but she didn’t get that talent from me. She’s the family Rembrandt. I’m the family Fred.

House Cleaning, From the Outside

 

By G.E. Shuman

 

          I am not a ‘physical’ person. No, I don’t mean that I am imaginary, or a ghost or something. I’m just not good at applying a plan to get something physical done, made, or fixed. MAKING a plan is easy for me; doing the work is not.

          I believe that every person is blessed with certain talents. Some people think I am a writer and of that I am still uncertain. (The day one of my books hits the New York Times best seller list some of that uncertainty may disappear for me. But, even of that, I am uncertain.)

          My point here is that not everyone is a plumber, a builder, or an electrician. My proof is mostly in our basement, where my attempts at plumbing, building, and electrifying are on sad display. (We recently had some ‘professional’ plumbing done down there. That day convinced me that part of a plumber’s training is in learning how to not laugh out loud.)  My repair work is proof that necessity really is the mother of invention, even if that invention includes hundred-year-old drainpipes patched with duct tape, electrical tape, and gallon sized plastic bottles. (I know about being up to code, and that ain’t it.) Hence, the recent professional plumbing job.

          My brother Steve is the exact opposite of me. He can build anything out of nothing, and it will work and look great. If you tell Steve that your home needs a deck or a ramp, he will ask you a few questions and finish the job by sundown. Well, at least by the second sundown. Years ago, I had a habit of writing poetry in my spare time. The next time Steve and his wife Dot visited us he presented me with a beautiful mantle clock that he had made for me out of pieces of hardwood from an old building in his area. That was many years ago and that clock was, and still is, beautiful. When Steve gave it to me, he simply said: “This is MY poetry.”  I could not agree more.

          So, getting back to my problem with applying ideas to achieve physical results, a while ago I decided to pressure wash the house. We live on a busy Barre street, and road dust just covers our vinyl siding. I had put the job off for a little while. Actually, Lorna had gotten me a really nice pressure washer three summers ago and last week it was still in the box. I guess that’s not a little while unless you’re God or a planet. I am neither.

          Monday was the day I would finally assault the outside of our house with soapy, powerful jets of water. That was, at least, if it didn’t look like rain and if my hangnails were not acting up, or if I couldn’t think of some other reason to leave the machine in the cellar.

          After getting the directions out of the box and realizing that this gift from my wife was more complicated than I had thought, I forged ahead and eventually figured out what I needed to do. Did you know that pressure washers, even smaller electric ones like mine, come with about a dozen parts and pieces, nozzles, and hoses that you have to figure out before you can even begin?  That thing was like a puzzle to me, and I HATE puzzles and putting things together! (Where’s Steve when you need him? Oh ya, Florida.) If Lorna had bought me one of those BIG pressure washers with a large motor, or worse, a gas engine, that would have spelled disaster for my nerves and probably for my house.

          Eventually I was on the side lawn with my new toy and had the garden hose hooked to it, the electrical cord plugged into the extension cord, and the wand hose and attachments… attached. I also actually got the little detergent sucker-upper hose in my detergent jug and was ready to begin.

          So, here we go! (Or, here I went.)  I found the on/off switch and turned it to ON. You guessed it. Nothing happened. I just stood there sweating in a slinky-like tangle of hoses and electrical cords, and nothing had happened. Freeing myself from the water-world snare I was in, I searched the attachments out and realized that the extension cord was not plugged into the outlet behind the house. Duhhh.

          Well, that was last Monday. By Tuesday afternoon I had succeeded in pressure washing all four sides of the house, the front porch, the lawn mower, the snow blower, my bucket hat, and several tee shirts and pairs of socks. The house now looks great, at least until the summer sun and traffic arrive. The pressure washer is back on a shelf in the cellar. I will soon forget it is there… if I’m lucky.

 

 

Hello Family and Friends,

Please consider checking out my books at Amazon.com.  Just search George E. Shuman.

The books are available in Kindle and paperback formats.

I hope you will buy them... 

(as I would like to sell them.)

My best to all,

George, Dad, Unc.