Monday, November 16, 2015

Kitten v. bucket of paint … Doc Jess loses

So it started out innocently enough, as these things tend to do. Arizona and I have been trying to come up with a plan to improve the baby proofing in the bathroom, where we lack a vanity cabinet and have only open shelves for storage, but don't want to invest much money. 

We decided to start by replacing the mirror over the sink with a medicine cabinet that we could retrofit with one of those magnetic baby locks (which are a PITA to install, but withstand lots of tugging). Then, while at Home Depot (ah, how many well-intentioned sentences start thusly when you own a home), we added a few things to the pile--some new shelves for downstairs, and … well, I can't quite remember what else, but suddenly we had spent four times the cost of the (inexpensive, fortunately) medicine cabinet.

Then, of course, when we get home and pull down the old mirror, we discover that there aren't any actual studs in the space where we want to hang the cabinet. Arizona, not being a fan of anchoring anything in drywall, decides we're going to screw a piece of wood to the studs and mount the cabinet to that. Okay, sounds like a plan, and we've got appropriate scrap wood on hand. Bonus, we've also got the leftover bathroom paint the prior homeowners had left for us. 

Er, somewhere.

So down I go into the storage niche, where, with Wallaby's "help" I dug out the paint in question. Which was, when I think about it, probably pushing fifteen years old. It was also nearly empty, and what paint was in there had long ago fossilized. Hrm.

In a blinding flash of I don't want to go back out/I don't want to color match and buy new paint, I decided to use up the wall paint we had left over from having painted most of the rooms upstairs, including the opposite bathroom wall.

First, though, the wall needed some spackle, the new board needed some putty, and the whole thing needed to be washed down. All done either while simultaneously entertaining a kiddo who has entered the 'walk three steps and face plant' stage with a vengeance, or during nap time. 

Did I also mention it was date night for the three of us?

So it was that last night, with Wallaby tucked in bed and Arizona snoring a song of steak-and-potatoes repletion, that I locked myself in the bathroom and painted the darn wall. Which included hunkering down, getting behind the toilet, behind the pedestal sink, and cutting in and around all sorts of annoying corners. And did I mention the need to remove the kitten from underfoot, in the sink, batting at the paint brush …? Which led to her rapid ejection from the project, much to her annoyance. All while CBS played on my computer on the floor, giving me 60 Minutes instead of Madame Secretary because of the football game. 

Eventually, though, I finished. I cleaned up. I turned on the blower, opened the door, and stuck my foot in the gap, in the move that is second nature to 99.9% of cat owners out there.

This time, though, I failed. A medium-size black-and-white blur somehow evaded my foot and my ungainly riposte, and sailed through the two-inch gap between the sink pedestal and the painstakingly painted wall. 

Or, rather, sailed halfway through. Because there she stuck, glued to the tacky light blue paint, looking at me as if to say … well, I'm not sure what she was looking like, because I was trying to decide whether to laugh my ass off or start swearing. I may have done both.

Some time later, when I finally emerged from the bathroom and rejoined my snoozing spouse in the living room, said spouse roused and sleepily mumbled, "Everything good?"

"Yep," said I. "I painted the bathroom and washed the cat."

"Awesome," he mumbled, and rolled over. Then: "Wait. What?"



11 comments:

  1. HAHAHA! Did the cat like the bath?

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    1. That would be a hell-to-the-no. But given that she lets the baby drag her around by whatever body part he happens to grab (until we intervene, that is), she's got a high tolerance for human foolishness.

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  2. That was hysterical!! Thank you for that!

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    1. Glad you enjoyed. Thanks for the shout out! It's aways nice to know I'm not talking to myself here :)

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  3. :) I keep waiting for this to happen here - though we're past the juggle-a-baby stage. I'll share my own long-past wash-a-cat story. I brought home my gross anatomy lab coat to wash - secured inside a plastic bag. Left it on the floor by the apartment door (with plans to wash in the morning). Saturday morning, we're trying to sleep in. Sniff. Sniff. The cat between us on the bed smells odd. Yet familiar. As I came to consciousness, I launched out of bed and dragged the cat straight to the sink. The cat had spent the night digging the lab coat free and sleeping on it. Most disgusting thing ever.

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    1. ROFLOLOL! That. Is. Awesome. I mean, sure, not at the time, but what a great geek-cat-owner story! Hope the renos are ... going. ;)

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    2. LOLOLOL, ad infinitum! :) GREAT story, Anne!

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  4. Cats are responsible for 58% of all laughter in the world.

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  5. Excellent story. Makes me glad, as I'm contemplating painting the living room that I don't have cats. Of course, I have obnoxious dogs who have to stick their noses in e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Maybe they should all go visit their Auntie Jess and Wallaby for the day when I paint? ;-) (insert evil laugh) JK...maybe. Thanks for the morning chuckle.

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  6. I just read this out loud to the Cat-Herder. We are both laughing our fool asses off.

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  7. How'd you get the cat hair out of the sticky paint?? Glad you both survived. I can relate. No cats here, but dogs and many years of weekly Home Depot visits way back when. It does slow down. And then it picks up again. (Gotta paint the whole house here again soon. Inside and out. : P)

    Thanks for the smiles. Hugs to everybody. :)

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