Love & Hate

I love to paint.

I am painting the deck. It’s very satisfying to cover up the winter-worn and summer-baked bare spots, and to cover up the disgruntled old paint that thinks it’s better and smarter than the rest of the paint just because it was in a sheltered spot and survived the ice of winter and the glare of summer better.

I have to go to the paint store. The guy there sells me mineral spirits to thin the paint by 20% so it will get into the cracks better. I get it home and realize I don’t have a container big enough to mix paint and spirits. I search for one, can’t find anything, and decide I’ll just pour some spirits in on top of the paint in the can and hope for the best. The mineral spirits have an adult-proof lid that I can’t get off, though, so all my worry and searching was for naught. I’ll just spread on unadulterated paint, thus keeping the 7th commandment.

Then I have to remove all the furniture and flower pots and sweep the pine needles and leaves and dirt from the deck. I have to find the steel brush. It has disappeared, so I have to get a putty knife to scrape the old flaking paint off. Then I scrape. Then I sweep again.

I have to wait until the deck has dried adequately from the last rains. I have to watch the thermometer to be sure it’s above 50 degrees, which in Oct. in the UP is only a few hours per day. Of course, those are the hours when the deck is in the sun, and you’re not supposed to paint where the sun hits the new paint. So I paint in drips of time and spots of shade.

Finally it is done. Leaves and pine needles floated down while the paint was drying and stuck in it. I have to rescue them first in order to send them to the hell of fire. Now I’ll have to search for the receipt so I can return the mineral spirits.

I hate to paint.