Taking it Off

“I’ll be home late tonight,” Mr. Wonderful's voice said over the phone.

“That's too bad,” I said standing on the kitchen table.

“How so?”

“Because tonight, everything's coming off.”

“… Excuse me?”

No one works harder than Mr. Wonderful. The guy gives a 110% every day to every job and everything he does. But it’s exactly because of his giving, hard-working nature that sometimes the home improvement jobs at The House get started then stall because he’s doing things for other people, places and things. So that’s when I step in to finish the job.

Yes I: the woman who’s good at hammering nails and better at removing them. Yes I: the woman who excels at breaking a concrete sarcophagus in the backyard. YES I! The woman who knows there are two types of screwdrivers—the Phillips and the vodka/orange juice cocktail. 

So when Mr. Wonderful called to say he would be home late, I planned to surprise him by taking the rest of the paint off the kitchen walls and ceiling all by myself. So I slipped into something more comfortable—namely my painting shirt and yoga pants—and went to work. By my paint removal calculations there were seven coats of paint on the kitchen walls: five coats of various whites, over mint green over refried-bean tan. Evidently when the previous owners wanted to change their kitchen’s look, all they did was paint it again and again. And Again.

By comparison, the ceiling had a measly four coats of whites including: off-white, on-white, bright white and dirty white.

With the walls and ceiling stripped down to their naked plaster, I cracked open the paint cans, stirred the paint and set to work on redressing the walls and ceiling in a new, elegant white paint. Woo-wee! He was going to be impressed I’d taken all this paint off. And put more paint back on. I couldn’t wait to see his happy face!

Around 11 PM I heard my spouse’s car in the driveway. He hurried inside to find me standing behind the refrigerator wearing my paint-splattered shirt and yoga pants.

“Welcome home!” I said blowing a lock of paint-sprinkled hair out of my eye line.

“… Hey,” he said his voice dropping off.

“So what do you think?” I said swinging my arm around the room.

“I thought you said ‘everything's coming off tonight’.” 

“Everything did come off. In fact I scraped every last paint chip off the walls and ceiling but since you still weren’t home, I started painting again.” His face fell. This was not the happy husband I was hoping to surprise with my painting removal and reapplication. “Don’t you like what I’ve done?”

“Of course,” he looked at his feet. “But when you said ‘everything’s coming off tonight” I thought you meant something other than paint.”

“… like clothes?”

“… For instance.” 

“Well the night’s still young,” I said dumping the paintbrush in the can and stepping out from behind the refrigerator. He smiled. “But first tell me what you think of my painting!”