It Wasn't Me!

It wasn't me! I used to hear that excuse often long ago when the kids were small.  A chorus of frantic voices would chime out that response whenever something went awry.  I would get a tad tickled as they always tried to find some scapegoat to blame.  Usually, that scapegoat came in the form of the youngest who always admitted to anything (even if he was not the instigator!).  Today, however, it was me who breathed as sigh of relief when something was amiss.  While out getting twigs to use as starter for the fireplace, the pruning snips broke.  Those things snapped right in two!  Whew!  It wasn't me!  Knowing my history of breaking most every tool used in yard work, I was happy to find that Michael actually broke this one. That same son that was always the scapegoat really had done it!  That said, this whole story would not have taken place had it not been for those broken snips.  A series of unlikely events took place merely because of the snips even if indirectly.

The broken snips that were the beginning of a series of unlikely and unfavorable events!

After the snips did their ill-timed deterioration, Michael and I decided to make use of my granddad's old snips.  Those were stored in the shed and were only used occasionally.  As Michael wheeled the wheelbarrow of cut twigs to the woodpile, I reached into the shed to retrieve the old snips. We had intentions of cutting a bit more kindling before calling it quits for the day. After grabbing the tool, I took one step backwards to turn toward the door.  The shed was dark.  I had not looked inside before entering.  Bad mistake!  As soon as I took that calamitous step, I regretted it.  There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.  Things were not good..not good at all.  "Uh oh!", I muttered.  "Uh oh?", Michael queried.  I tried to explain the weird feeling underfoot.  "There is squishy!"  That was enough to cause tremendous concern. Yep, there was squishy!  As I lifted my foot, long strings of goop dripped with a splash back onto the floor.  Beige, squishy, goopy stuff was engulfing my feet!  PAINT!  Yep, a five gallon can of paint had a major problem sometime in recent days.  A large puddle was seeping slowly from beneath the open door like some great pulsating blob.  UGH!  I pulled the door slightly to see more paint.  What a mess and I had stepped right in the middle of it!  What could we do?  A giggle fit took over!  That seemed like a good thing to do at the moment!

I told Michael to find paint brushes.  He looked at me with skepticism and asked what I planned to do with paint brushes.  Being one that hates to waste anything, I informed him that we were going to paint the shed!  I had been planning to do it anyway so I might as well make use of all the spilt paint!  At that point, he informed me that it was raining and not a good time for painting anything.  I persisted!  Yes!  We will paint!  So, we painted.....in the rain.  Scooping up brush after brush of paint from the floor, we spread it on the outside wall of the shed only to have it wash down the side in mud-colored rivulets.  Another round of giggles!  It was great fun!  After about an hour of this, he fetched another large bucket and scooped up several gallons of the paint while I continued to slap paint on any wall available.   By now we were getting a tad silly.  Paint was on our feet making it hazardous to walk.  Paint was sticking our jeans to our legs and drying making our clothing stiff.  Paint was on our shirts and in our hair!  We were covered with the smeary stuff!  The grand finale to this whole fiasco came when my paint brush fell out of a makeshift extension handle and splatted me right in the face!  Now I can tell you with some assurance that paint does not taste delightful at all!  Enough is enough!  Giggles! Again!

We quit the insane job of painting the shed during a rain shower and grabbed the water hose to wash the rest of the paint off the floor.  The floor of the shed is made of decking boards and was supposed to have a small gap between each plank.  The water should flow right through or so we thought.  Duh!  Big mistake!  The paint had been sitting there for several days obviously as it had caused the boards to swell tight against each other.  My pouring water on the paint did nothing but cause a flood in the shed!  Oops!  Eeek! After another round of witty remarks and many giggles, Michael had a brilliant idea!  Grabbing the drill, he bored a couple of holes right in the floor!  Water poured out like Niagara Falls! It was wonderful!  A flood of beige-colored water poured out under the shed!  All I could think was that I was thankful that this was non-toxic water-based paint! One hour of flooding the floor and scrubbing it with a broom saw us still with a mess. That paint was refusing to cede!  More witticisms and peals of laughter.  By this time, my sides were beginning to hurt from laughing so much!

The blob of paint did not look so bad until I peered behind the door only to be met by gallons more!

It was then that I noticed that my ceramic molds were sitting in paint.  Oh, no!  These had been stacked behind that very same door!  Ugh!  That would never do!  Those would definitely have to be cleaned if I ever wanted to use them again!  Well, nothing to do but set to work on that job.  It could not be delayed if I wanted to preserve the molds.  Son and I moved forty or so molds before getting to the bottom ones that needed cleaning.  Another job done!  We moved back to cleaning the floor.  Just how much paint was there? Looking at the floor and the smeary paint, I thought that only he and I could see the humor in such a mess!

After getting that whole ordeal under control, we decided that it was definitely quitting time!  We were exhausted!  I turned to look at him and burst out laughing!   He was covered with paint!  He pointed out that I was just as bad.   Yep, it took a good long time to get "unpainted"!  I am not sure we will ever get all of the beige paint out of our hair, jeans, shirts, socks and shoes.  I can say that we did at least treat the whole thing with a sense of humor.  It goes to show that a little laughter can make an enormous job a lot easier. (Just don't mention beige paint to either of us for a few days!)

To answer any questions about the cause of all of this, Michael has come to the conclusion that the change in temperature and air pressure caused the five gallon, plastic paint bucket to implode.  He checked two others that were sitting next to this one and found that the lids and sides were sucked in by the pressure.  Turning the pour spout caused the pressure to equalize and the buckets to return to their normal shape.  Just something to think about if you have paint stored where the temperatures can cause problems.  I would definitely hate to see anyone else have this problem!  If you do, though, laugh while you clean!