The Good, The Bad, and The Just Plain Nasty
This afternoon I attempted to paint over the Crayola murals Evan drew in his now "old" room, which will soon be his brother's room. I caught a great deal when I asked the paint color from the maintenance guy and he offered to fill up my own containers with the paint he had in storage. Free paint. A whole 2.5 gallon container of it and about half that of the trim color. Awesome. I spent 30 dollars total on a curtain rod and paint supplies and that's well worth the thousand dollar deposit we'll get back if I can tackle the job.
Little did I know that Crayola's washable marker color #666 would be nearly impossible to cover. I've painted 6 or 7 coats over Evan's artwork and that one color is still running through the walls like thick blue veins. Harder still to get rid of is the cleaner Shaun sprayed on the wall one day while I was gone- remember that part: while I was gone- to try to get rid of the artwork. FYI, Shout- (yes, as in the stain spray fit to meet your laundering needs)- is only meant for fabric- go figure- and more specifically for clothing. You put it on a wall and it drips likes grease. You paint over it and it bleeds through the paint with the persistence of a severed artery.
So I fought off Sciatica and Braxton Hicks while following both my son and husband's trails, and when I came to something green/yellow in color and crusted onto the wall, I just had to laugh. Of course there's a booger on the wall- why wouldn't there be a booger somewhere on the wall in a 3-year-old's room? Of course, judging by the other trails it could just as easily be a little gift my husband left for me. And it didn't really matter, because do you know what I did? Do you know what brought me great satisfaction and joy in my painting? I rolled right over that thing. Just one firm roll of cream-colored thick goop and it was as good as gone, wiped out of existence as if it had never been there.
That was the moment- right then- when two things happened simultaneously: 1) I wondered why in the world we didn't keep a small container of paint around at all times, and 2) I smiled. I smiled the broad toothy smile of a conqueror because while there were still grease stains and blue veins awaiting me, I had successfully taken out a booger without blinking or thinking twice. I didn't even stop to consider chiseling it off first or fetching a Clorox wipe. I didn't worry about the fact that it would always be there, sealed up underneath all that paint. But most impressive of all? Not once- NOT ONCE- did I so much as gag or throw up a little in my mouth.
You'd think I'd be more motivated now; to prevent any sort of nose-picking under this roof, however discrete. But I'm not. Not at all. Instead, I'm making lemonade out of these dirty, rotten lemons I live with by keeping a Tupperware of paint on hand, and then I'll paste those things down in their place with the agility of a cowgirl drawing her pistols. The next tenant will never know how many fossilized boogers are buried in the paint around them. It'll be like living on an oil well or a gold mine. Only with boogers. (Which would probably make it more like living on a graveyard or pet cemetery, really... or a land mine if they're total germ-aphobics... but who's computing anything I'm writing at this point anyway?) All you're thinking is that you don't want to visit us, and moreover, that you don't want us to visit you. And what can I say to that except- we'll understand.
