Pants on fire!

"Promise breaker"

Seventeen years ago I made a promise that I’m soon going to break. I don’t want to, but it’s gonna happen. Oh, it’s gonna happen.

Just to set the record straight, it’s Kay’s fault. And, you wanna know something scary? She knows it’s her fault, and I don’t think she cares. Reminds me of a song by Roy Orbison. But, I’ll not go off on one of my tangents. This is too important. 

It was back in February of ’94. We just moved in. The two back bedrooms had some wall issues. Two teenage boys had lived in the rooms and their ucky blue walls were loaded with staples. I’m assuming there were posters. We didn’t have posters when I was growing up. (Oops, another tangent trigger.)

After a day of pulling staples, we ended up with an ucky blue wall with thousands of tiny white-chalky holes in it. If you made a tiny telescope with your thumb and pointer finger, and you squinted real hard, it looked like the night sky during a Latvian smog alert.

To tell the truth, the wall didn’t bother me all that much. I’ve always had a fondness for Latvia. But, Kay would have none of it. She wanted to paint the walls. More than that, she wanted me to help! Devil woman, let go of me.

So we laid down a tarp and prepped the walls. I don’t remember much of what all that involved, but it was bad. Dr. Rex told me to try to put it all out of my mind. He said that people with peculiar personalities should never delve into the past. Peculiar personalities? He was the only psychologist on our insurance plan who would see me. That’s just weird.

Anyway, the prep -- what little I recall of it -- was almost as bad as the actual painting. The entire job was… I’m sorry. I don’t care to go back there. It’s enough to say that I was covered with paint and Kay only had one spot on the back of her left hand. I threatened to get in the car and drive to Montana, and, again, she didn’t seem to care.

At some point during the agony I made a promise -- THE promise. With the paint roller stuck in my hand, and one of those cheep little sponge daubers attached to my rear, I said, “If any part of this house ever gets painted again, it’ll be by someone other than me.” Or, I. I’m pretty sure I said “me.”

    Flash forward 17 years. I’ll be painting the same two bedrooms next week. Seems Kay got our remodeler guy, Brian Shelley, to turn two closets in the adjoining rooms into one closet. I didn’t see the possibility, nor the need for such a job. Kay had a vision. She had something.

The job required some wall removal, which pleased the daylights out of Kay. She says that now we can paint the walls another color. Sunrise Coral Island Sand. Looks a lot like peachy tangerine to me, but I assume that name was taken.

Brian Shelley marrying two closets

While I do remember the promise I made about painting, I have obviously forgotten much of the torment of the job… thanks to Dr. Rex. It seems that when I try to recall the worst of the experience, my brain sees a platter of waffles. I went through some serious therapy.

And soon I will break my promise. A promise breaker I be. I don’t do that often, ‘cause I generally attach qualifiers to my promises. “If all goes well, I’ll…” or “Unless I change my mind, I promise to…” That kind of stuff.

But there was no qualifier on my promise not to paint. I was so sure I wouldn’t need one. Turn two closets into one? I never saw it coming. Takes a special person to    see something like that. Apparently one without my “peculiar  personality.” I still don’t know what he meant by that.

END

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