The Incredible Painter

You know how sometimes when you are in the midst of an event you instantly realize it will become a family moment in years to come? Well, such an occurrence happened to me about an hour ago. For months I have been painting every room of our downstairs. I have become quite the good painter, the tired painter, the I-never-want-to pick-up-another-brush-as-long-as-I-live painter, and today my oldest son described me as The Incredible Hulk painter. I got a little mad. What’s wrong with that? We all have to blow off steam, right?

I suppose I did more resemble a tanker of explosives hit by a grenade than The Little Engine that Could. But it really was the last straw. Room after room, sore knees and arms, blisters even, and finally I have come to the end of my summer painting stint. I had one long wall to go in the dining room. I had cut in already. (For you amateurs, that’s the brushwork around the ceiling, windows, etc.) The easy part was all that remained. But I was REALLY tired. It’s been two days of non-stop, except for sleeping, painting. Last night I Saran-wrapped my brush, gave kisses and was out. This morning I awoke, unwrapped the brush and took off. So at that moment in time I wanted to be The Little Engine that Could but I was The Little Engine that Couldn’t.

I took a break. I wrote. I got my mind off all things paint. An hour later I returned to the easy last wall. One roll of the roller and I go postal! (That’s probably not politically correct to say but you can all picture me, I bet.) I start yelling. I can’t believe it has happened. “What? What’s wrong?” Three of the males of the house were home at the time. What would be worse than what was happening would be to have any of them attempt to appease me. I do believe I screamed that everyone had better stay away from me. They did. All but one – the bravest of the bunch.

You’re probably wondering what happened. When I left my plastic paint tray for that hour of restful writing the enemy called Air dried the thin layer of paint on the plastic roller pan just enough so that when I began rolling the wall teeny little flecks of hardened paint colored my wall. This had occurred one other time when I was painting my first room here and it drove me nuts. I couldn’t find the source of the never-ending flecks. I blamed the paint, the roller. It took a long time to decipher the culprit.

I knew I had to act fast. I poured the uncontaminated paint back into the paint can and washed the plastic tray. About this time in my tirade my oldest asked if he could wipe all the flecks away. Yes, please. Although, perhaps I didn’t sound so sweet. Next he re-rolled the part I’d done but more flecks came to the party. Of course they did. The incipient air-made creatures! Already they inhabited the roller. I wiped the roller with napkins, poured paint into my freshly washed pan, and finished the wall. I now have a beautiful dining room although a bit of the love-hate-love relationship between me and the dining room exists at the present moment. I need some rest to see it in all its glory.

Afterward my son said, “Do you know you were shaking? Holding the roller up in the air and shaking?” I wouldn’t be surprised. It was then that he likened me to The Incredible Hulk going from mild-mannered me (Oh, wait, that’s Clark Kent, but same principle) to lunatic in the span of a few seconds. But the beast has now quieted, we made a memory and now I have a funny new nickname. He called me The Incredible Painter, right? That's how I remember it.

Have a great weekend, my readers. Stay away from paint. I know I will.

~ Maureen