My Dream Job is To Be The Name-Assigner

We own a small painting company. There. I've said it. The Company is a house painting business. We, and by we, I mean Jefferson and our guys, work (I work too, I have very important calls to make, books to balance, laundry to attend to and blogs to read. Hey, somebody's got to keep up with the details.) on "higher end" projects, repaints and restoration. Cue the music, Johnny, this is starting to sound like a sales pitch. We specialize in custom interior painting. Many of the residences we paint are historic or of estate quality, some are oh so modern, but the one thing they have in common is that when the Company is finished with them they are all fresh and perfect, grand even.

Our house? It's not so grand. It's just a house. A sturdy one that's in good condition but needs an interior paint job. Badly.

So please, the next time you come over, don't mind the "chile pepper" (orange - aren't chile peppers either red or green?) brush marks on the "snowdrop" (as opposed to "snowbound" and "snowfall") colored ceiling. The cut lines for the "kennebunk green" (this is a muted green color, but my mind instantly thinks red, red, RED when Kennebunkport is referenced) are a bit wavy and the drops of "take five" (go ahead, just try to guess that color, I dare you)  on the hardwood should have no bearing on the professionalism and expert quality provided by the Company. Because, well...me. It's all Me. I'm the painter around this house.

It's a case of the cobbler's children having no shoes. Jefferson is so busy making other homes showpieces that the hallway wall that our kids MUST TOUCH every time they go up and down the stairs now looks as if we harbor refugees, an additional 10 children, and livestock, all of whom are sticky and covered in maple syrup, in our home.

I was hoping to be finished with the first coat of "complimentary cream" (yellowy gold-ish) before Jefferson got home this evening. FAIL. He walked in the door just as I screamed "Damn it! Shitcrapfuck!."  With blithe indifference he walked around the step stool I was perched on and just shook his head.

"What about drop cloths?" he asked. "Don't need them. Professionals never, EVER drip. That's what you taught me." I replied. "Right, no drips that I can see. But what about that full gallon you dropped as I walked in? Maybe the drop cloth would have come in handy for that." Pans are for sissies. We pros paint out of buckets or squeegee the paint up from the floor, if need be.

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Further Proof that This is My Dream Job. Sarcasm and magic mushroom use seems to be highly encouraged in the paint-naming department at the name brand paint manufacturing companies.

The whites all seem to have personalities: Smart white, Polite white, Agreeable white.

Greys are also personified: Amazing grey, Intellectual grey, Worldly grey, Analytical grey, Useful grey and just plain old Passive, no need for the word grey there.

Then you've got your sexually based themes: "Hopeful" and "Lusty" are reds, "Afterglow" looks more like jaundice, "Tease" is peach and "Come Hither" is gold.

Drugs, I tell you:

Individual White - is so individual it is not white at all, it's lavender

Baguette - a yellowish green, did they mean Moldy Baguette?

Salt - is green -huh?

Embroidery - embroidery? a darker pink

Chivalry - is not dead and is the color of pumpkins, who knew?

Independent Gold - is neon green, hangs out with Individual White on weekends

Spinach White - not green or white. Tan (?!)

Notable Hue - not notable, bland and boring blue

Potentially Purple - in who's world? it is clearly khaki brown

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Dear Benjamin Moore, Sherwin Williams and Pratt and Lambert,
It is obvious that YOU NEED ME. Call me. We'll discuss salary and benefits later.
Love, Kelliqua

Comments

[sumgirl]

i <3 this post!!! it made my day. i stopped blogging because you write good enough ("well enough"?) for the both of us.

[savia]

That's it - when I repaint my house, I'm picking all my colours based on how naughty they sound. Maybe they'll go together, maybe they wont, but at least I'll have a good story!

[Kelliqua]

Thanks for saying that sumgirl. (I've got your bribe money in the mail, btw.)

Savia- I can totally hook you up, with a discount even. Hint: Sherwin Williams seems to have the most sexually deviant name-assigner. Start there.

[kimba]

When your friends and mine, B and L, decided to paint the exterior of their house several years ago, they were looking at white paint samples with a group of us in their living room. Maybe you were there?

Anyway, the least well-thought-through paint name EVER had us rolling in inappropriate laughter.

"Montgomery White".

Someone was NOT paying attention in history class.

[Kelliqua]

Ouch! I wasn't there, but would have been right there with you inappropriately laughing.

See? 'Shrooms.

[Denise]

Hey if you got that job you could also work at J. Crew or J.Jill or Banana Republic naming the colors of their clothing!

[Kelliqua]

Sign me up! I could be the official color-namer for the whole country.

If "Spinach White" can be a color description, anything can. That one still gets me - WTF?

[Neil]

I say we change the dull "Red, White, and Blue" to "Lusty, Pearl Wonder, and Morning Sky."

[Kelliqua]

Neil! Of the bloody fingers!
(Did y'all know I was once his Crush of the Day?)
Well, I've got to say, you're a man of your word.