# A Tragic Comedy In 3 Acts, Entitled "a Woodworkers Nightmare"



## jskeen (Feb 7, 2011)

Ok So I'm going to try to set the stage for this for you. I have 3 children, ages 9, 7 and 4. The reason I have 3 children, as Bill Cosby once said, Is because I do not want to have 4. The eldest two, being of the male persuasion and my presumed heirs upon this earth, (in nomine patris et fili spiritus sancti, Amen). Share a room, while the newest, being concave like her mother, has her own. The Boys room is furnished in vintage, North American, second hand. While it's not exactly Green and Green, It is at least solid pine for the most part, and not laminated particle board.

After months of urging (I'm being polite, in deference to The Bard), I took it upon myself to re arrange the two side by side twin beds into a single high twin, with a trundle beneath. I had been putting it off for some time, but the other day I walked up behind the wife while she was on her computer, and she was looking at Ikea.com! Argh! So I invested a bit of drilling and joining and hammering and cursing, and at length brought forth a new sleeping arrangement for thing 2 and thing 1. And there was much rejoicing.

However, Now begins act two of my little presentation. This new permutation of furniture had the unintended side effect of renewing the dreaded "I don't like the color-ITIS" plague from which my wife suffers, (although not as much as I suffer from it). And so we open the second act with renewed "urging" to do something about the unremittingly ugly medium brown stain of the previously mentioned furnishings. As it is summer and school is out of session, and I am (for my sins) doomed to work from home, the "urging" was pretty much ceaseless, and eventually even one of such iron constitution as your narrator was unable to withstand. It is much like being nibbled to death by a herd of ducks, as I understand it. I distinctly recall hearing in my head, as still, small voice speak that most dread of incantations, "How bad can it be?" And Lo, the gods of paint and varnish heard me, even though I had not spoken the words aloud, and were angered.

And so we watch as our defeated protagonist is dragged off to the big box store in search of a gallon of gloss latex and assorted accouterments. Later, duly equipped with the requisite pigmentation agent, in a particularly unsavory shade of slate blue, oddly reminiscent of a tour of a United States Air Force Brig, the selection of the first piece of furniture is undertaken. Striving to limit the damage in the initial stages, the first victim is chosen to be a relatively small wooden ladder, once used to reach the second level sleeping surface when configured as a bunk bed (or to tie things to the ceiling fan if the parents are not watching closely enough) This, being an experimental piece, is to be done by yours truly with "aid and assistance" from the spousal unit. And, as it sometimes happens, the job was accomplished with relatively little unpleasantness, over my lunch break.

So begins the final act of our tragedy. Later, after the children return from vacation bible school, I was summoned into the castle via a phone call, and told that I was to remove a larger chest of drawers with shelves to the lawn near the driveway, so that it could be also be coated with pigment. In spite of my protests that I would be off work in a few hours, I was forced to remove said furnishing to it's place of torment. I was at least able to confirm that Mom was going to be overseeing the actual application of the paint. This is a woman who can, while I am painting the living room again from puce to mauve (or back, I can't recall) is able to, without even looking up from her rerun of the golden girls, spot an imperfection the size of a gnat's genitalia from the next room, so I took small comfort that all might work out in the end. At this point, my power of prose fails me, and I am forced to leave the results up to you, my readers to imagine. I will however offer a few observations that came to me as I emerged from my office at the end of my work day. All three of the offspring were gathered around the object, paintbrushes and cups in hand, completely unencumbered by maternal oversight. The paint covered about half the surface, in widely differing thicknesses. (I kid you not, there were drips on there the size of Katy Perry's nipples!) Somehow from it's perch atop a pair of 3 foot tall sawhorses, they still managed to get grass into the paint!

Needless to say, I persuaded their mom to take them to McDonalds and feed them chicken nuggets as punishment for their sins, and labored late into the night to attempt to mitigate the damage. My success or failure will remain a secret, as I have no intention of ever posting any type of photograph of the resulting travesty online, lest it come back to haunt me in my next incarnation. I guess I will be painting the rest of the pieces by myself in the relatively near future.

Wish me luck!


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## newconvert (Dec 12, 2011)

no no no! this calls for pics!, anything less would be a travesty! we need to see the artful presentation of the young children of Jskeen the wise and masterful, and you already know it YOUR fault!


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## Imperial (Feb 9, 2011)

so.... you say the paint drips were the " size of katy perrys nipples . " pics would help us in that assessment .


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## Sofreto (May 10, 2012)

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures...nothing less


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## Bostradamus (May 15, 2012)

c'mon... we gotta see
with descriptions that include genitalia and nipples how can we NOT get pics?


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## akmslingshots (Mar 2, 2012)

haha, a picture paints a thousand word!

and Imperial is correct, a direct comparison would be the only viable option


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## lightgeoduck (Apr 3, 2011)

I am going to jump on the pic bandwagon, but it was a good read either way









nice write up

LGD


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## ifix (Jun 11, 2012)

waiting pics to compare....


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## WILD BILL (Jan 26, 2012)

I love the Play. Written very well.!

I have "BEEN THERE AND DONE THAT". In the last few months I have had the pleasure (NOT) to go behind my Wife and re-paint, room by room in our house. I use to make a bit of a living painting and am quite particular (Your Mom sounds like mine).

I know the nightmare you are living.

And yes, pictures please. I am a pretty good visionary, and the mental picture of the kids, paint, grass and of course Katy Perry that I just got was just too funny.

Bill


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