[really long] story time!

In the place of actually having something interesting to say, I would like to bring you pictures.

And I shall narrate along the way, because my photos are their own story. This is the story of how on a Thursday afternoon, while driving home from a particularly stupid gym excursion, I get a phone call from a friend. And this friend has an idea, and it's going to involve me in a big way. I know this by the way she responds after I answer.

e: Holler!

k: heeeeeeeeey friend.

e: uh oh.

k: [laughter.] I have a proposition for you...

e: Is this going to potentially get me hurt and/or in some kind of trouble with law enforcement?

k: [long period of silence] uh...maybe?

e: what is it.

So this is the part where she launches into the story of how her husband and child are going out of town for the weekend and she wants to paint her living room. Here's the catch: I'm the only other person that knows. No exceptions, the only other person. This translates to, if I'm going down, you're coming with me. So what is my response?

e: What color were you thinking?

Because let's be honest, I didn't have anything else going on. And I like to decorate and design. And I can't do any of that at my house because my house is in fact, my parents house. So I'm 100% in before she even gets to the color choices. Which, by the way, she didn't really have anything set in her mind. So I throw out my default color, "what about an earth-tone green?"

So here's what we were looking at:

Now, I'll be the first to say that I'm a fan of brown. I do, I love it. But this is too much, and definitely the wrong shade. So we went to West Elm (my stipulation of partaking in this weekend, because they were having a sale, and I wanted a bathmat.) and then afterwards, we stopped by Home Depot. And this is the part where I walk through all the color walls and just start throwing shades of green at her. Then we lay them all out, and she chooses three. We get samples, just like the pros do, and we go home to change/test them out.

And maybe have a beer:

As in my life, the beer is the focus, but in the background, you can see our test spots. At this point, we looked at each other and both thought, well now we really have to do something. Because even though we could just call it artsy, three green splotches on your living room wall is not cute.

So we go back to the Home Depot, first making a stop at Sonic, which for some reason was not only challenging, but hilarious. This was the moment we realized that we would be making a second trip to the exact same Home Depot, within three hours, in completely different outfits. (I had been wearing my favorite jeans, and was not willing to sacrifice them to the chances of non-removable paint.) So we tried to come up with a lie, but our byline just grew more outlandish and absurd rather than heading towards the realm of believability.

At the HD, as I like to call it, three distinct events occurred worth mentioning. Event #1: we chose a shade of green paint, and ordered three gallons of it, which, just FYI, is two, too many. Event #2: We met Gregory, the incredibly attractive gentleman that works in the paint department of Home Depot. He helped us choose the shade of white for the fireplace. Did I mention he was attractive? He was. (I also deduced that I could not date said Gregory because my brother's name is Gregory and that would be weird and confusing.) and then finally Event #3: to the high school girl standing behind us in line. Do not give me weird looks when I start dancing to "Eye of the Tiger" because it's your stupid ringtone in the first place. It just so happens that it is also one of my favorite gym songs. So suck on that.

We order a pizza. We drink another beer, and we start to prime.

This is about the time that we learned several different things. Things like: oops is a scary word; we are actually not as lazy as we originally thought; I find myself exceptionally funny; painting and drinking actually can work out.

and so, one more beer, and we moved on to painting:

Kaci did a lot of, ohmigod I cannot believe we're doing this, and Matt is going to freak out. But I had already forced her to commit, so she was pretty much stuck either way. And since we started, we might as well finish. Second most popular phrase of the night then became: watch the carpet! We cannot ruin the carpet!

so we did this:

And if I'm being honest, I'm still amazed at how perfectly we did not ruin the carpet. So we primed, and painted, drank beer and ate pizza. And then we sat around for an hour and a half, watching the paint dry. Now, I am here to disbar a rumor that watching paint dry is boring, because it is my experience now, that the truth is quite the opposite. Most of the conversation is not something I can divulge so freely on the internet, but trust me when I say it was not only interesting, but humorous. I should note that if you wish to achieve similar results, you should probably have one of or both of us around. I think we're key ingredients to success. So we called it a night, admiring our handiwork, and picked it up bright and early the next morning.

And now it was time for some green action:

This is the time, if there ever was one, for me to mention how challenging I find the process of taping to be. It could have been because it was late, or because I was four beers in, but for some reason, I kept taping the wrong parts of the wall. And out of sheer frustration for having to do it twice as many times as Kaci, I grew to hate the taping concept. So if you would like me to help you paint, you have been warned. I will whine for the whole taping procedure. You should also know, as my tennis coaches learned back in the fifth grade, that I like to talk, and talking slows me down. Therefore, my tennis matches were the longest, and I am a slow painter. Entertaining as hell, though.

Kaci, on the other hand, is not. And we finished painting her entire living room in less than two hours. And once again, sat back and watched the paint dry. And even though it was 10:30 in the morning, we had ourselves another beer. And we did a lot of smiling, and used the words "fresh" and "clean" a lot, and patted ourselves on the back. Because let's just be honest here, that living room looked good.

and that fireplace looked good:

and then, the part that we had been dreading since we moved everything in the first place. We had to move all the furniture back. And I had to set her TV back up, and rewire all the speakers into the receiver. (Because for Kaci, I am one-stop tech support for any and all things electrical. Seriously. Her iPod breaks, I get a call. Her phone. Her TV. Her toaster. If it plugs in, she thinks I know how to fix it.)

And once we had it all set back up, she finally seemed at ease about it. No longer was she saying that Matt was going to kill her. And the burden of being the only one to know was lifted, because she was so excited that she was telling her sister and her mom.

Free at last, free at last.

and it was worth of excitement:

You struck comedic gold when you found me.