Pink No More

When we first settled on this apartment, we were thrilled with a lot of things. We liked that we were close enough to walk to work. We liked that we were near a pretty significant landmark so even without one of those pesky addresses that they don’t really have here, we could still find out way home. We liked that it was furnished, so we wouldn’t have to spend $6,000 on tables, chairs, couches, beds, etc. We liked that it was close to stuff like restaurants and roads out of town, but still relatively quiet for being in a city. The one thing that I hated despised abhorred about the apartment was the master bedroom. It had a great big beautiful window overlooking the park and a distant mountain range. It had a little nook for doing school work that could double as a tiny personal office space. It had plenty of clothing space for Shannon so she wouldn’t have to go all manifest destiny on my closet. It even had enough space for a big bed, which was a must. The only thing that ruined that bedroom for me was the Pepto-Bismol colored room.

The master bedroom was clearly inhabited previously by the Ecuadorian version of some Tiger Beat, N*Sync following teenie bopper. I imagine the room was painted pink to match this imaginary child’s toenails. At least she had 43% of the hideous colors covered up in Teen Vogue magazine cutouts. (probably)

Either way, it was clear to Shannon and I that while we loved almost everything about the apartment, this Carebear thing was going to have to go.

It would have to wait however as we had priorities. We had to get our home some hot water, some food, our clothing and other stuff, and as soon as we had that school started.  So we toiled away for almost a month. We lived in a Barbie Dream House room out of convenience until we could get it taken care of. It eventually got to a point where I didn’t consciously notice the room. I would only even remember the color when I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold shivering sweat having My Little Pony themed nightmares.

We were complaining about it one day when a school employee overheard us, and in typical school employee fashion offered to find a solution for us. She said she would find us a painter for $30 to do the work, we would just have to get the supplies. I have painted many a room in my life and I am perfectly capable of doing the manual labor but shoot, close to 9 hours of aggravation, light-headed nausea, and ruined jeans all spared in the name of about $3 per hour for labor? I signed up.

Shannon agreed it would have to be changed and asked what color I wanted to paint it. I told her literally any other color would suffice and she settled on buying a nice sky blue/green color that I was fine with.

We got the supplies and then waited. When she found someone for us and setup an appointment we realized that it was the sweet elderly man who works as a messenger for our school. (Side note: how cool is it that the school has a not one, but two messengers to run basic errands for staff like getting keys copied, or trips to the bank? Free of charge?) Well anyway our initial meeting time came and passed with no painting. We later found out that he was sick and we rescheduled. It was close to a month now and I was getting antsy. I was about to start doing it myself but we were able to setup our other meeting with him and he showed up to that one.

When he got there, he opened the primer we got for $30 and found that it was dark silver. Clearly, darker than our new choice of paint color. We were faced with the choice of buying another gallon of paint for three coats, or using our primer and buying another gallon of paint for three coats. We decided to skip the extra step and speed along the process.

After three days of work, our room was saved. We obviously paid him more than the $30 since he was so great. We  can finally move  back into our room tonight and chances are, I won’t have any Rainbow colored, candy coated nightmares. Hot water, normal colored room, tv, internet, furniture, food, and good location. We can finally start living our lives without tinkering. Well…we will when Howie the dog gets here.