The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

 I got my hair cut and then headed over to paint. It was 80 degrees out, and I threw open the windows and listened to my favorite Pandora station. Mumford and Sons Radio plays a good selection of not only that band, but The Steeldrivers, Lord Huron, Tracy Chapman, Chris Stapleton and a nice mix of indie music. The music swirled around with the warm breeze, and I worked quietly and carefully for a couple of hours, stopping to admire my progress and sip on a cold drink. 

I do the trim, and Tim does the roller work and I had made my way around the room, trimming three windows, two doors and a stairwell. 

And then William and Tim came back from the birthday party. 

William was tired, but saw an opportunity to make some extra money. I gave him a job. He whined and complained. It was too hard. He needed help. I helped him, and then gave him another small job. I went back to my painting. While I was gone, Tim had done the roller work required to two of the three walls that required it. I wasn't quite finished with the trim on that third wall. I tried to step up the pace. 

William needed help. 

I said, "William, I can't stop now. You're going to have to wait."

He got upset because he saw his opportunity to get some extra dough slipping away. He began to fuss and to complain. He wanted a job. "Listen," I said, trying to be patient. "You can do 'x'. You can do 'y'. If you want, you can do 'z'. But we're busy right now, and we cannot stop to help you." 

For the record, the jobs were moving the tools from the now finished living room, sweeping the kitchen floor, or sweeping the dining room floor. He did not want to do these things. 

"Then don't do them," I said. 

"But I want to earn money," he said. 

"William," I said in a warning tone. "You need to stop." He didn't. 

Tim yelled at him for the second time in one day. William fled up the stairs in quite a temper. 

Tim said, "I knew he'd be tired."

I said, "He's not having his late night Friday nights anymore. This is ridiculous." 

I tried to step up the pace. I had just to trim in the ceiling on that final wall, and I did something I never do. I took the bucket of paint to the top of the ladder, and trying to hurry, managed to drop it. Don't even ask me how I did it. Paint everywhere. Half a bucket of expensive paint lost. I couldn't get off the ladder without stepping in the paint on the ladder treads. It was awful. My bare feet were making tracks, adding to the general  disaster. 

In the middle of all of this, William resumed his fretting from the stairwell. Tim lost all patience. I was fed up with both of them. There was much hollering from all sides. William stormed out the door and sat in the car feeling very sorry for himself. 

It was not one of our finer days. 

Let me close with a laugh from facebook: 

A woman was writing a condolence card. Her five year old son asked her what she was doing. She explained that she was writing a card to her friend to tell her how sorry she was that her mother died. 

The five year old pondered this a while and then tentatively asked, "You're just writing that to be nice, right? Not because you did it, right?"