I’ve got the painters in
Posted on | July 21, 2009 | 5 Comments
I mean literally. It’s not a euphemism for brooding gloomily and snapping grumpily at all around just because I’m feeling a bit poorly. Just get on with it ladies. Christ, you’d think you’d be used to it at this stage. Stop growling and scowling at me and get on with it. If you feel you need to fake a monthly chocolate deficiency, by all means do so, but do so cheerfully – with a jolly song, maybe. It’s that or be banished to the shed for a week. And no ‘if men had periods, we’d all be working a three-week month’ comments. We’d just get on with it, light-heartedly whistling as we did so, probably saying ‘I don’t know what all the fuss was about’ or something similar.
No, my painter is a real painter. He’s currently locked in the spare room, whistling (see – cheerful) and making painty noises. Some of you may question my manhood or my DIYhood. I’ll have none of it. While I’m perfectly capable of painting, I hate it with a passion normally reserved for Youths who listen to music from the tiny speakers in their mobile phones on the bus. It’s the tediousness of it. The utter, dreary monotony of rolling and brushing and being careful around the edges and whatnot. Drives me mental.
So, I’ve got a man in.
To be perfectly honest, it feels weird. I’ve never got someone in to do something that I’m able to do myself. I feel like a wastrel. I tell myself that he will paint half the house in two days whereas it would take me a week (which it would). I tell myself he’ll do a better job (which he will). I tell myself that he’s actually very reasonably-priced (which he is – I’d want four times the amount to do the same work). Still don’t feel quite right about it though. Maybe it’s the working-class bloke that lives somewhere in my middle-class body. Maybe he balks at the idea and calls me a lazy tosser. He’s not completly wrong.
Oddly enough, my painter doesn’t drink tea. What kind of tradesman doesn’t drink tea? I’ve had to have three cups this morning to make up for it and to balance the cosmos.
Might have another one now.
Comments
Gerry Hayes
I mostly sit around all day and drink tea. Occasionally, I write stuff and send it to strangers so they can humiliate me and deride my efforts. Other than the self-harm to dull the shame of failure, it's not a bad life. Like I say, there's tea.
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We’re going to get a painter in to do our house. The whole exercise has been postponed till next year, due to cashflow reasons. But I completely agree with you, a professional will do a better job, a faster job and a cleaner job than we could ever do.
I’m worried about you picking the wrong guy, though. He doesn’t drink tea?!?!?!?! What about coffee? If he doesn’t drink coffee either I’d be even more worried. There must be something wrong with him.
No tea or coffee. I know… Weird.
He’s probably gone round to the pub after work saying to his painty worky mates ‘Oh yes the one I’m doing at the moment is a right arty farty bastard, drinks tea all day you know – didn’t get a look in’.
Our painter doesn’t drink tea either. He smokes weed.
RM: I hope not. Since I graduated to middle-classness, I fear that working-class people are talking about me and my hoity-toity ways. I’m part of the self-loathing middle-class.
Ellie: If mine does, he doesn’t do it here.