Aggravating blokes*
Another racing-downhill day, with your feet trying urgently to get ahead of the rest of you, and ploughing-the-sward-with-your-face looms dangerously.** This included the frelling phone ringing tonight as I was trying to get out the door again, but this time I eyed it in deepest distrust and said, you’re the painter again, aren’t you?, and answered it in my best dulcet tones. *** Yes. It was the painter. The painter who (according to him) the builder told that I wanted to get going . . . with this all-over single neutral colour. He wanted to know if I’d looked at the book of samples he’d put through my door today? Yes, I’d had a look at it. Oh good, he said, because he has four guys coming to start painting tomorrow. TOMORROW?!?? Well, you wanted to get on with it, said the painter. Whom do I want to toast over a slow fire, the builder or the painter†? Well, let’s start with who’s telling the truth? Who said what to whom, and was he speaking verity or expediency (as he knew it)? I know that workers-in-three-dimensions tend to have their own ideas about time, scheduling, and the passing by of both . . . but I’m more accustomed to the not answering your phone calls, not showing up on the day†† breed rather than this overactive, terrier-with-rat variety.
And I am a very tired rat.††† I was a tired rat before the (unscheduled) phone call at 7:23 pm, during which I agreed to check the old paint tins at Third House and let him know tonight what the windowsill-trim colour is.‡ I was on my way out the door with a tray of little green things in pots to take up to Third House, after which I would proceed on to bell ringing, when the phone rang. I still went bell ringing‡‡
And I told the brushwork bloke that I’d ring him at around 9:30 with the name of the paint. It took me an hour and a quarter to get through, starting at about 9:20. You’ve been on the phone FOREVER, I said. Oh, no, he said airily, we’ve been on the net, our broadband is down. . . .
But I still have to choose paint‡‡‡ or he’ll paint my attic Gardenia, which is the colour of old notebook paper that has gone yellow with age. No. Actually the attic is such a complicated physical space–stairs, variously slanted walls, variously non-horizontal ceilings, dormers, velux windows, and a chimney stack–that I am going to want a pale and neutral colour. But not Gardenia. And I refuse to consider anything called Naturally Calm. I wonder how many people have chosen Cookie Dough for the name?§
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* Yes, you may read this both ways
** I met a couple of these *&^)$£”!!!! cross-country motorbikes out walking hellhounds this morning. I heard them coming from some distance, of course, and had hellhounds cranked in when the first one belted around the corner, saw us, and stomped on his brakes. To his credit, I suppose. But I think it’s what unstuck his companion, who, perforce, slammed on his brakes too, hit a little saucer of mirror-smooth dirt, slippery as ice, and went kaBLOING and over. I didn’t quite see it happen; I was exchanging wary nods^ with the leader . . . who went barrelling on, unaware of the scene of confusion he was leaving behind him. Imagine, if you will, reader, the mixed emotions with which I approached the fallen warrior and asked him if he needed arnica, a phone^^, a ride in a car or a hand with his devil machine. . . .
^ Out of my god-bestowed way, pedestrian peasant, and thy ill-visaged beasts also!/ Get the frell out of my countryside with your noisy, stinking, landscape-destroying and wildlife-traumatising devil machine!
^^ I am embarrassed that the RaspBerry includes a phone and that I carry it with me on hellhound hurtles, for its one-handed Dictaphone capacity+ . . . but I do.
+ Anyone who’s ever tried to write a note on a piece of paper while their hands are full of leads will understand immediately. And anyone over the age of, oh, thirty or so, will understand the concept not merely of critter-walking being thinking time but also of remembering what you’ve forgotten and if you don’t write it down you’ll forget it again time.
*** I’m not very good at dulcet, but I tried.
† Over here known as a ‘decorator’. I can’t cope with someone who only does walls being a decorator. A decorator gives you advice about faux fur and chandeliers.
†† Some of you will remember that it took me TWO YEARS to find a builder to do the work on Third House
††† Good day with PEGASUS! Yaaaaaay! Well, modified yaaaaaay. Since it keeps bulging out at the sides I’m not getting any closer to the end.
‡ Almond white. Just so you’ll know.
‡‡ During which I successfully navigated a touch of Stedman, including both More Evil and Less Evil singles. And yes, it does take this long to learn Stedman, unless you’re (a) disgustingly talented and (b) blessed with a band that enables you to practise it every week, wherein you are the only variable. Neither of these consummate conditions appertains in my case.
‡‡‡ And get up there with it tomorrow morning. I have to get out of bed. I have to go to the paint store and hang around while they do their little alchemical thing with making up samples. (I have to choose which samples.) I have to get up to Third House and slap some of this stuff on the walls. Somewhere in there I have to hurtle hellhounds. I have a novel to finish.
§ I wonder what colour you get out of Painter Toasted Over a Slow Fire?
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