Pumpkins and golf balls and toilets … oh my

We’re still in the throes of remodeling the master bathroom, pictures to be coming soon.

How long does a throe last? I’m thinking an eternity, give or take a millennium or two?

Nate called me in to look at the first coat of paint. It was a color we had both agreed upon after hours and hours of intense negotiations and trips to Lowes and reviews of paint samples and more trips to Lowes and the insistent stamping of size 6 feet.

Nate wears size tens, in case you were wondering who had the emotional wherewithal of a five year old during this ordeal.

By the way, is there a law that requires paint samples to be smaller than a fully dilated cervix, which in my case is six OH MY GOD, GET SOMEONE IN HERE WHO DOESN’T HAVE SAUSAGES FOR FINGERS centimeters? What is the sense in that? Is it to save money? Because having samples so damn small and forcing certain anal-retentive, semi obsessive-compulsive people to grab 156 little squares of each color so that they can run home, ransack their house for scotch tape, eat a donut, go potty and then tape all the samples together on the wall to get a reasonable idea as to the color? That doesn’t exactly strike me as economical.

Then again, either does repeatedly throwing eleventy gazillion dollars at money hoarding scum so they can fly their private jets to Vegas and party so, what do I know?

Anyway, the first coat of paint in the master bath concerned me in a HOLY SHIT, THIS IS ALL SORTS OF WRONG kind of way and other than standing in front of Nate and vomiting on his socks, I wasn’t sure how to convey my intense dislike, as the paint did not even remotely resemble the Citrine Granite color we had chosen and instead, looked suspiciously like someone had run over a rotted, moldy pumpkin and smeared its corpse all over our walls. But any thoughts I had of mentioning that maybe we ought to rethink the paint were dragged out my head, beaten to a bloody pulp and buried in the back yard forever when Nate stiffened his entire body and loudly declared I WILL LEARN TO LOVE IT. Couple that with his defiant, slightly unhinged, two minute blinkless stare and Pumpkin Guts Road Kill it was.

The paint we used is Valspar Granite which requires a two step application process with the first being a straight forward application with a roller and the second a series of criss-cross movements done with a hard bristled brush.

It is this second application that is so very labor intensive which is a nice way of saying that it sucks ass and causes an otherwise calm and rational husband to have a psychotic break and loudly declare to his skeptical wife something along the lines of YOU’LL LEARN TO LOVE IT and thereby risk losing a testicle.

The second coat turned out to be quite awesome. Good thing because otherwise, there’s a very good possibility I’d be in my back yard right this minute, typing with one hand and using the other to dig up bloody, pulpy thoughts and fling them in the general direction of Nate’s remaining family jewel.

I adore the texture of granite paint which is more or less like sandpaper. I have only to rub my back up and down the wall once to be eternally grateful that we chose this paint because it means I no longer have to chase Nate or the kids around the house, begging one of them to please, please, please scratch the itch on my back … right there, nope, down a little … to the right, up a little … that’s it! NOW KEEP SCRATCHING UNTIL I DIE.

And lest you think that I’m some kind of shrew without an ounce of compassion for the effort Nate exerted to paint the bathroom, rest assured … I know exactly what he went through because I painted a faux finish in our downstairs powder room using this same two step process. It was ten hours of sheer hell and other than a vague recollection of crying under the sink and begging someone to hit me over the head with a Toyota and put me out of my misery, I don’t remember too much of it. My right arm being permanently two inches longer than my left is, however, a friendly reminder that I have no business being creative in small spaces that house toilets.

Speaking of toilets, we bought one for the bathroom this past weekend, much to Zoe’s utter and complete humiliation. We dragged her with us under the premise that yes, we were going out to eat but we just had to make one little pit stop beforehand. When that little pit stop turned out to be the toilet aisle at Home Depot, it was all she could do not to run to the jackhammer aisle and start excavating her way to China.

As Nate and I discussed clog-free systems, solid waste removal and power flushing, I called down the aisle to Nate, asking about the likelihood of actually having to flush two dozen golf balls at one time. During this exchange, Zoe did everything in her power to assume the roll of an orphan.

Nate and I got into a discussion about 15″ vs. 17″ height and when I loudly proclaimed that I am short and feel no need to vault onto my own toilet, Zoe shimmied her way inside a roll of carpet and played dead.

We got into a heated debate over round seats vs. elongated seats. I simply do not understand the mentality of spending an extra $100 on an elongated seat so that your fanny doesn’t feel crowded. In a moment of frustration, I may have shouted A FANNY IS A FANNY IS A FANNY AND YOUR FANNY ISN’T ANY BETTER THAN MY FANNY but I’m not sure. Zoe doesn’t remember because she was too busy sending an emergency text application to the nearest adoption agency at the time.

Much to my chagrin, we walked out of there toting a high efficiency toilet with the capacity to flush 29 golf balls at once. Complete with an elongated seat. That I will have to launch my body onto with a running start.

Much to Zoe’s chagrin, it was an extremely high price to pay for some chicken alfredo.

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