Red Paint

Good news (mom), I'm inspired to write again! Bad news. I have nothing to write about. So I guess I'll just ramble. As opposed to my freakishly insightful writings that I normally produce... (Laughing at that is allowed.)

I bought red paint a couple of weeks ago. I've been wanting to paint our front door red. Yes, I'm well aware that everyone has a red door, but it's just not true because I don't have one! And I want one. So my sweet husband took the kids and I to Lowes two weeks ago. He went to the wire department (or where ever he actually went) and I went to the paint department. I browsed all the reds comparing them under different lighting (I know that it's going to be outside and really won't matter anyway but I wanted to look like I knew what I was doing you know, picking out paint like a big girl and all). I had Jack in the cart and he would let me know if it was too orangy (technical term) or too pink or too bright. Finally we found the perfect red. Jeff strolled into the paint department at just the right time and Jack and I proudly displayed our paper paint sample to Natalie, Carter, and him as we anxiously awaited their immediate approval. It was a bit anticlamactic but it would have to do. Because I'm easily amused I exitedly jumped (once) and walked confidently over to the paint lady (another technical term), handed her the sample and said "I want to paint my front door this color!" Right. She looked none too impressed with niether my enthusiasm nor my choice of color, but ask me if I cared in that moment (I didn't).

She rolled her eyes and asked in a monotone voice, "Do you want a whole gallon?" Uh, I have no idea paint lady you're the expert, you tell me how much I will need. "I guess. What about a half gallon?" Looking super annoyed she said, "We don't sell a half gallon. Just a gallon or quarts and you'll need more than one quart and two quarts cost more than a gallon." Of course they do. "Well then I guess we'll take a gallon." "Fine." Wow, paint lady. You are totally ruining this experience for me. I glance over at Jeff and he sort of shoots me this I-know-she's-not-being-nice-just-be-patient look so I wait as she goes and checks stuff on her computer. Suddenly a paint guy shows up who appears to know more about paint than the paint lady does and he starts asking me about primer. I tell him my door is white right now and I want the red to be a deep red, not a bright red so I guess I want the primer to be darker, not just white. I had him for about half of my sentence until he sees that Jeff is wearing a BowTech "official-looking" shirt and starts talking about hunting. Seriously, paint guy was my only hope for a sucessful experience and I lost him to hunting? Back to paint lady I go.

I look over at her to see how she's doing and she's seriously taking forever on the computer. The kids are getting antsy to get out of there and we still haven't even discussed primer (since I lost paint guy to my husband). She leaves to check on primer costs and comes back annoyed that the computerized paint mixer-upper hasn't done it's job. She restarts it and grabs the primer. She says they don't have the primer color I want, but she's sure if she just adds some black to some white it will be fine. I don't trust her. Next, paint guy goes over to check the paint the lady had mixed up on the computer and says (loud enough for us to hear), "Is this the color they're painting their door? Pink!?" Uh, no. It is not. Clearly paint lady is either completely confused or simply does not know how to order the computer to mix the paint. Either way I've decided (over the last 2 minutes of our 40 minute wait on paint) that we will not be buying paint here.

We didn't have time that day to go to Jerry's or Home Depot to get the paint, but 2 days later I did get it. I was super excited to get the door done but I learned at the paint store that we have to wait until there's like three days in a row of sunshine so the door won't get too much moisture. At this rate I won't be painting until mid July and I could have just held out for the Lowes paint lady to get her act together because it might take our beautiful state that long to have 3 nice days in a row anyway.

Oh, and on a side note (since I apparently have to have one in every post): I'm pretty sure the Lowes paint lady and Doogie Howser from the pharmacy are related. I'm just sayin'.