Today is a bit of a sad day for me..... I have (had) two long standing records and one of them came crashing down... literally. I've been painting houses now for 18 years and have yet to spill any significant amount of paint... sure I've got the odd drip or two on the carpet or sidewalk but never anything like the third of a gallon I knocked over today.
I was cutting in the top angle in the basement of this house today. It's a fairly big job, we've been on it a couple of weeks and everything was proceeding in business-like manner. I was standing on the third step of a 6 ft. stepladder when the homeowner showed up to see how the job is going (we're just about finished).When I left the step ladder to chat I made the cardinal painting mistake... I left the can somewhere it could be spilled, in this case the fold down tray you place the can on while painting. After our exchange he said, "I'll get out of your hair." He then headed upstairs and I picked up where I left off... preparing to make my next move of the ladder.
I'm not blaming anybody but the spill became a combination of things; a- I lost focus because I stopped to talk and 2- the tray on a 6 ft. step is just out of view, had it been a 4 ft. I'd have easily seen the can. Be that as it may when I started to move the ladder I heard the "bloop" of sloshing paint. The tray tilted backwards and for a split second the handle of the paint can got caught on said tray and time stood still. I reached for it but I was too late, it crashed to the carpet below creating a football shaped mess. I could have saved myself a lot of grief by having a drop sheet down and I usually do but when I'm cutting (as opposed to rolling) I'll sometimes work without a net.
Fortunately I had a full container of rags in the truck and I started to sop up the mess, occasionally glancing over my shoulder to make sure the homeowner didn't reappear- not that there was much I could do if he did (there's some truth in what you don't know won't hurt you). With a bucket of water, a bucket of sweat and some elbow grease I got most of the paint up and luckily it was sort of beige like the carpet so it didn't show as badly as if it was say.... red.
At this point though I was right out rags so I decided to go to the hardware store down the street to get a chamois, a sponge and some more rags just to be sure my clean up was complete. Here's where it got a little weird. There was this dude in the store (I could immediately tell he was a bit of a talker), he looked at me and said, "You're a painter right?" To which I muttered, "Yes." (still sweaty and shaken from my balls-up). He then asked me, " Do painters still use tarps?" I was shocked by the timing of his question given recent events but replied, "Of course they do, if they're professional."(I wanted to tell him what I was doing there but I bit my tongue). He started to explain that he had seen a paint job in a downtown hotel and there was paint splatter all over the tile and flooring-the painters had failed to use drop sheets, to which I replied with something like,"It's hard to get good help these days."
Long story short, I finished the clean up and used drop sheets the rest of the day and will continue to do so until the end of time... and oh yeah, the other unbroken record- I haven't thrown up since 1984... I better get some Gravol.
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