why I'll never be a painter

Everyone is a bit annoyed with me today. I can feel my roommate hating on me from the next room.

I kinda deserve it, I guess. Although honestly, he hasn't considered me many a time in planning something out, so my one indiscretion shouldn't count for all that much.

I embarked on somewhat of a project today. But I suppose I should start at the beginning.

My phone started ringing around 9am this morning. If I haven't mentioned it already, I am involved with several small business ventures, and today was one of those days where people just needed things. Also, you should know, I don't typically cruise out of bed before noon - I work a late schedule most of the time.

Anyway, 9am, phone is ringing. People are texting, the preferred method for confirming shifts these days. Every half hour I'm dealing with something, but I'm exhausted so I refuse to get out of bed. Finally, 11am rolls around, and my business partner is not waiting any longer for me.

He needs me to paint something. That's it. 2 boards. Sounds simple enough. Until I realize there is nowhere for me to paint these boards, and he is trying to suggest I do it at my apartment. Now, normally I would do it at his house, but it would require a second coat around midnight, and there was no way I was going to hang around in the other end of town until then. My place it would be.

Initially, I thought, I'll do it in my car. I have an unusually high opinion of my ability to not make a mess. Then I saw the board. Way too big.

I considered the balcony, until I recalled that the stain will not take properly in cold temperatures. And it's freaking -14C.

This was my only responsibility for the day. And I knew he really needed me to do it. So I did what any aspiring entrepreneur would do. I made a solution.

I covered an entire wall in my room with newspaper, laid out the tablecloth my roommate is trying to get me to throw away on the floor, and set myself up there.

Within ten seconds I had ruined my clothing, though I surprisingly spared the beige carpet and white walls. I did get some paint on the door but fortunately it was saved with paint thinner.

After a reasonable amount of struggling, I finished the first coat, with 45 minutes to spare before my night out on the town. I called my business partner to make sure he didn't need anything from me, which he said he didn't. Then my date called.

"I'm wearing a dress shirt," he said, as I stood in front of the mirror at our front row gauging my outfit. Torn jeans with paint all over them. Bright blue shirt exposing my midriff. Headband to contain hair. Paint on hands and possibly face.

"Oh, so I should probably go more than one level up from my current outfit."

Oh, and I should mention that any sort of date that requires dressing up basically terrifies me. I once arrived at a lunch date in jeans and a t-shirt only to realize the place was at a ritzy hotel restaurant. I just about had a heart attack, walked up to the reception and said, "please tell me I'm in the wrong place". She fortunately informed me that there was, in fact, a restaurant with the same name on the same street, but I've never felt the same way about dates and formal. I was more horrified by the fact that I was going on a date in a ritzy hotel restaurant than the fact that I was ridiculously underdressed for the occasion. I think this, however, is a topic better left for a later date.

So 45 minutes later, I no longer look like hell and have dressed myself in my emergency outfit; basically this gorgeous, long-sleeved knee-length dress my mom brought back from Switzerland that goes perfectly with any sort of black footwear. And off we went.

I won't get into the specifics of the date, mostly because it wasn't particularly eventful. Dinner closed and I found out I had 9 missed calls. Nine. I call my business partner. Turns out he desperately needed a credit card, which was in my possession, for the following morning. I offered to return it after the movie.

I cruise into his place around midnight and drop off the card, and head home, at this point about 5 hours after I had left. My roommate is sitting in the living room, and he looks like he has been seething. I show him a funny video and we chat, and I confess that I had painted and that is the horrible smell flooding the apartment. He says he thought it was a putty next to the dryer in the wall; I find it hard to believe he didn't open the door to my room and notice the massive board that has been freshly painted. Mostly because he will occasionally put things away in my room, and the smell had to be most potent closest to it. But whatever.

I realize he has been running the fans like a maniac and decide to put a towel under my door to block any more fumes from escaping, and open my window to get some of the air out. I actually have no idea how I am going to sleep. I can't sleep with the window open, nor can I with the window closed. Either way, I've basically resolved my roommate's qualms and here I am, half asleep, in the freezing cold, confessing the horrors of my evening to the internet.