The House That Bent Me Over

What do you get when you combine three 14-hour-days, a handle-bar moustache, and 17 tubes of caulking!?

A really fuckin' good time!

I have started painting houses lately, in an effort to make money in this shit-show of an economy. Work isn't exactly easy to come by, so I have officially decided to essentially be a sweatshop worker for the summer. The only difference is that those lucky bastards probably don't have to see a paintbrush. Right now, using my bloody fingers to construct a sneaker sounds awfully appealing.

Ok, you're right. It's not THAT bad. I am getting paid, and as far as I know, I am not the subject of any broken labor-laws...yet.

As Bob Marley blasted from the iHome, and assured me to "Not worry about a thing, because every little thing is gonna be alright," I had to turn the corner around the re-painted, and re-painted, and re-painted side of the house with way too many nail-holes to stare that iPod straight in the face and say, "Thanks, but no thanks Bob. I beg to differ."

Turns out every little thing was not going to be alright, but it got me to thinking about the last time I heard that song, it was the part in "I Am Legend," and the dog dies in Will Smith's arms before it becomes a Zombie-Dog. Then I remembered I cried during that part. Alot.

And for those of you who have not seen I Am Legend, sorry for ruining it for you, and welcome to 2009.

The contrast between the peaceful reggae, and the sheer exhaustion experienced from over 40 hours of work in 3 days was too damn ironic to even acknowledge at the time.

Perhaps fittingly, the iHome was on shuffle, yet insisted on playing this damn song over and over, mocking me in the 85 degree summer heat, as the dust clouds clogged my nostrils, and the sun blistered my newly-shaved head.

Standing a sure 18 inches off of the ground with the aid of an A-frame ladder, with my knees wobbling like I was staring down the slope of Mt. Everest, a tiny voice catches my attention.

"I like to catch Caterpillars. I caught a Caterpillar. These Caterpillars are big, are they? I have good balance, do I? Look at my Caterpillars, will you? I have big feet, do I? It's hot out here, is it?"

Without looking, I was wondering if it was Yoda talking to me, with such peculiar grammatical habits, but it turns out it was a young girl. The daughter of our client with an affinity for caterpillar's, and a callous disregard for using conjunctions properly.

She was 4, I am a writing major, and it was a long, long, long day(s).

It all sort of clouded into one long day, and I lost all concept of time, and all patience regarding...EVERYTHING.

I knew that I had hit rock bottom when their adorable daugters were telling me about the grasshoppers they caught, and the only verbal reply I could think of was, "I....DON'T....CARE!!!!"

I was able to supress my anger, and then their father strolled along, like he always had done, standing a strapping 6'4, 235 and a handle-bar moustache that would make Tom Selleck jealous.

"This nail-hole needs to be re-caulked," he said.

"Yeah? That's weird, because I went over that. 3 times. You're house was poorly constructed, and you are asking me to do the work of the contractors. I am sorry, wood cracks. Splits happen. Imperfections are a part of life, just look at your moustache. Now, I appreciate your suggestion, but I am going to continue working. Oh, and if you spent as much time inspecting your house for nail-holes as you did teaching your daugter grammar lessons, we would all be better off. Good day."

Ok, I didn't actually say that. I just bit my tongue as I thought about how I looked in the garage and saw that this man had enough guns and ammunition to win a war for a third-world country. This is not to mention the fact that he could easily snap my neck into 6 different pieces.

So, I said, "Okay, I'll go over it."

It was the strangest contrast of things. This man was easily one of the most intimidating people I have ever come across, but he was also genuinely nice. Just a very cool, nice guy. A very cool, nice guy who happened to be paying thousands of dollars for his paint-job, and wanted it done right.

He also HATED nail-holes, but who doesn't, really?

"These nail-holes need to be caulked."

Yeah, I got that the first 3 times.

"Mommy doesn't like the paint," said the 4-year-old un-filtered truth teller. Kids say the darndest things.

I found myself in a familiar position, on a ladder, scared to death, with a 4-year-old barking orders to me, telling me about how she likes to make mud-pies, and the fact that, "truthfully Sean, you are doing a SHITTY job on this house."

She never said those exact words, but she may as well have.

My co-worker asked the girl if she likes the paint.

"Yeah. But mommy doesn't. Nope, nope she doesn't."

Too bad mommy writes the checks, not her daugter.

"I write the checks, do I?"

Don't worry, about a thing...

Throughout the job, I disregarded the song, and chose to worry, more often than not, about every little thing. Because every little thing was the farthest thing from alright that I could comprehend.

"Mommy say's the Bob Marley song is misleading."

Seaney agrees.

We ran out of paint. We spilled. I spilled. I painted, sometimes on places that shouldn't have been. Sometimes too much, sometimes too little.

We caulked, until our fingers turned blue, or white, or green, or whatever paint was around.

I can't count on my fingers and toes how many bugs just sat in the pool of fresh paint brushed against the face of the house, dying in the toxic substance, but even worse...I can't count how many bugs died by drowning in the pool of my own sweat on my chest from the longest 3 days of my life.

I watched the bugs withering away in my bodies natural air-conditioning, and again, I found myself envious of their current state.

"You missed a nail-hole up here," said the man that could end my life with his left index finger...without the assistance of his small army of weapons.

"I'll get it."

It was so hard to hate the customer. The customer was always right. The Customer was always picky, and the customer always hated nail-holes. He HATED nail-holes.

It would have been easy to hate the customer, but he really was nice. They were all nice. Very nice people.

He would come outside while we caulked, and painted, and he would talk to us like a fellow college student.

He would have been so EASY to hate, but he made himself likeable, accessable to our 19 year old sense of humor.

He periodically threw out words like "fag, pussy, shit, fuck and cock," that made him seem alot more hip than he probably was.

"College is for pussies," he would say.

"You missed a nail-hole," he would say. Far too often.

He made jokes about our bosses sexuality, we laughed, we disagreed with the Bob Marley song.

"Mommy can't believe you guys are still here. Aren't there some sort of labor laws being broken?"

We genuinely hoped so.

All in all, we wrapped it up last night, as the sun had set, and porch-lights were our only guidance.

Porch-lights from the deck that we didn't get around to staining. Not enough time.

"Mommy says we are just going to do the deck ourselves. Because you guys are taking so damn long, are you?"

As we packed up the last of our undoubtedly insufficient supplies, 3 bodies piled into a small red-pickup. One of them about 8 inches taller than the rest, and undoubtedly less qualified, we shook hands with the handle-bar moustache. Partly excited that we finally finished, completely exhausted and overwhelmingly estatic that we never got to see the ammunition up close, I recieved that HARDEST handshake of my life.

It's like he thought about every nail-hole we missed, every sploch of white we had to re-touch, every year of college education we were about to get, that he never will have, and transferred that sheer agression into one handshake.

As I heard the bones crack in my right hand, and my knuckles shift to a whole new position, I couldn't help but hear an eerily soothing sound in the background.

Don't worry, about a thing. Because every little thing, is gonna be alright.

As we rode off into the sunset, I realized what we just did wasn't quite the Holocaust, but at the time, it felt damn close.


But hey...we're getting paid.

"Mommy says she's glad those painters are gone, is she?"