Colorblind – In Your Face Ugly!

I saw the stark blue color from the top of the road and I went into a violent panic attack. I turned onto our steep driveway and gunned it. I didn’t touch the brakes. I pulled up beside Al, stopped, and yelled out the car window, “It’s the wrong color. Stop painting.”

Al turned his head, and looked back at the side of the little cabin he was painting. He barked back over his shoulder and the noise of the paint gun. “You picked the color. I’ve already painted two cabins and I’m almost finished with the third.”

“Stop painting. I mean it. It’s horrible. We’ve got to change the color.”

Al dismissed me with the roll of the eyes and continued to paint. “I’m almost finished with this building and I’m not going to paint them over again. That’s that.”

I shook my head and said to Maynard and Gloria, our visitors from Arizona, “This is terrible. I can’t live with that Tropical Florida blue.”

Maynard, slow-mo, even at a trot, continued watching Al paint. He said, “When Gloria is in a uproar, I’ll tell her to go lay on the couch, it will pass.”

“This is not going to pass. And, I’m not going to lay down on the couch.” I looked at Al again. “Stop. I’ll buy more paint.”

“You picked the color. I like it.”

Gloria, no-nonsense, a zip-line granny, sat beside me in the car. She said,  “Is he colorblind? Pray for rain. Maybe he’ll stop painting.”

“Rain’s not going to stop him. He’s determined to paint all those cabins with that horrible blue. I need to talk to our daughter, Allison. She knows how to make her Dad understand. But if I do, she’ll tell me I told you so. She said she wanted to pick the colors to start with because I picked colors like an artist.”

“How’s that?”

“She thought I might paint the cabins purple. Okay, I did once, I painted everything purple, but I was in my purple phase. I’m not now. I’m seeing red. She won’t be any help. She’ll take her Dad’s side.”

I slid out of the car. I made my presence fully know to Al at the foot of the ladder. I put my hands on my hips and dug my feet into the dirt. “Al Slade, you’re showing off in front of our friends. Come down from that ladder. Stop painting or I’ll have to help you get off that ladder. It’s not going to be pretty.”

Maynard whispered to me, “I don’t think this is the time to shut your Sweet Al down. He’s worked all day, he wanted to surprise you and he’s tired. This is not what he wants to hear.”

“I was surprised. And, this is not what I want to look at for the rest of my life.”

The paint gun sputtered and quit. Al stopped painting and came down off the ladder, “I need more paint. I need to go to town.”

I took a deep breath and said, “Thank you for painting my little cabins. Thank you for surprising me. I know you’re tired. You’ve worked hard all day. I’ll go to the store and buy some more paint.”

“No, I will go.”

“Oh no, let me. You stay here and clean your paint gun.”

I beckoned to my friend Gloria, “Jump in before Al decides to go with us.” I ran to the car. I didn’t wait for Al. I drove to town like a bat out of hades. The store was still open for business.

I took my paint samples into the store. I told the clerk, “I didn’t pick that color. I don’t know how I ended up with that Florida blue. Some one has made a mistake.”

My friend said to the clerk, “She’s had one fight today, I don’t think you want to mess with her.”

I picked another color and we drove home. Al started painting again. Now we have one building with three sides of one color, and one side of another color. Two cabins are one color and the others are different from the other three. It looks like we got a great bargain on paints from the $5.00 mis-tint shelf.

My daughter called and said she was coming over.

“I warn you. It looks like a bunch of shanty shacks. But it’s not my fault. Don’t say, I told you so.”

“Right,” My daughter said. “Live with it, next year when Daddy’s forgotten about it, buy the right color and finish painting them.”

J. B. Priestley said, “Marriage is like an endless visit in your worst clothes.” I think that’s what our visiting friends must have been thinking.

Final Brushstroke! There’s nothing like arguing in front of company. Some fights end up in the front yard. You just can’t wait to take it to the bedroom behind closed doors when it’s in your face, right down ugly. Don’t fight in front of guests. If you do, they might leave or they become family.