Misadventures in Home Improvement #3

With paint in hand and two mostly cooperative helpers, we got down to it!

(note the drip coming off his roller, landing who-knows-where while he pauses to pose)

By about noon, we nearly had 2 full gallons on the wall, but it was clear that we were going to need a second coat.

Jeff and I started on the second coat while we sent the young lad to the store with an empty gallon to get more of the same.

Bryce calls from the store:

“It’s going to take a little longer, they have to custom match the paint.”

“Um.  What do you mean they have to custom match the paint?  It’s a stock color, they should just be able to read the bar code and…”

“Well, they did that, but I could tell that it didn’t match.  I told the guy to look at the paint all over my arm—it’s supposed to look like THAT.”

Says my color-blind son.

Seriously, he’s color-blind.

But he could tell it was the wrong color.

I would have been proud of his problem solving skills if I weren’t so busy being sick to my stomach.

Because this is what I figured out:  the first two gallons were in fact some mystery color—an imposter to my perfect color.   Some catastrophic mishap at the paint mixing station—2 drops of yellow where there should have been green—I don’t know.  The gallon that Bryce had mixed (originally) was in fact the true perfect color…2 gallons ago.  Oh, the horror!

I cried.

Real tears.

It was devastating.

Because when you’ve just edged a fairly spacious bed-vanity combo, you get kind of put out by doing so with the wrong, totally imperfect color.

I had noticed it was different that morning.  I attributed it to not having 2 coats or not being completely dry.

But I trusted that dratted bar code.

How could the bar code be so wrong?

Jeff dried my tears and we decided to continue painting the 2nd coat with the ugly absolutely hideous paint-matched gallon Bryce brought home.

We reasoned that perhaps after it dried overnight and I slept on it then maybe I wouldn’t feel quite so…betrayed.

Next Chapter: 

• Paint matching is kind of an overstatement.
• My knight in shining armor slays a dragon.
• Maybe I shouldn’t be managing the family’s finances.