PATRICIA MISIUK: Pass the paintbrush and pain reliever
When MB mentioned her recent paint-a-thon, it was, as Yogi Berra would have commented, déjà vu all over again. The way I’d been grumbling lately, you’d have thought I’d been commissioned to paint biblical figures and scenes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. My project, a small bedroom and a closet the dimensions of — at least the way it seems to me — a cereal box.
Clothing, shoes and boxes on shelves, removed and dumped on a bed. Bookcase emptied, dresser drawers piled like Jenga blocks, crammed into another room.
Remaining items, two beds, one mine and the other, doggy’s, shuffled while I vacuumed, tamped down dust bunnies firmly lodged in areas seldom visited by my Bissell.
Then came step aerobics, up and down a ladder, as I destroyed cobwebs in corners and rearranged drop cloths. Please pass the Bengay.
Kilz paint camouflaged scuff marks, stains and other suspicious spots. Then I engaged the car in autopilot for the first of several trips to the home improvement center. I was still wearing my paint duds so spatter on my skin and outfit gave me a Dalmatian dog look. At home, my dog’s tail, now whiter than gold, whisked against bed linens.
The house, built in 1987, had understandably “settled” over decades rendering walls dented and cracked. Reaching and maneuvering a roller strengthened upper arm muscles and stretched a body that had shrunk a quarter inch in the past two years. I had hoped this exercise would negate my age-related shrinkage.
The project, executed in fits and starts not to mention two additional trips to the home improvement center, was winding down. The one-thing-leads-to-another during any home project prompted me to launder drapes, wash the window and sort through the contents of my Fibber McGee closet.
After I dragged furniture back to its rightful place, I figured I could use leftover paint to freshen up the pantry wall. And I already had almost everything I need except a decent roller and new tube of Bengay.
Patricia Misiuk is a Lakeland resident whose once silver stepladder resembles Jackson Pollock’s spattered artwork. You can reach her at SHOOK46@aol.com.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: BTW: By the way
