Excitement Out the Wazoo

Last night, the girls were exhausted, so Martin and I plunked them into bed early and settled down for a "Psych" marathon, a big laundry fold, and ironing fest. We consumed cookies, tortilla chips, and multiple cups of tea. It was a party of sorts--tomorrow was Friday, an easy day for both of us, and we were going to have a great night's sleep. We finished watching a third episode of "Psych" at around 11 and dragged ourselves up to put the house to bed before heading up for toothbrushes. I tidied and started the dishwasher, and Martin, feeling tired and a bit grumpy, headed down to the basement to start the dryer.

It was after he came upstairs and shut the door that I heard a dull thunk, thunk, thunk sound, followed by the click of the door reopening and Martin groaning in disbelief, "Oh, NO."

I had a pretty good guess as to what had just happened. I hoped I wasn't right, and so I said pleasantly, "What happened? Is everything okay?"

Martin confirmed my fear. Now, before I describe what happened and admit that the blame lay mostly at my feet, let me just point out: the accident involved Martin's big feet, and the existence for months of two paint cans at the top of our basement stairs, one with the lid not quite tamped down, is indicative of a larger, more widespread problem at Wazoo Farm, which is not putting hardware-type things away properly.

If you'd been at our house last night just after 11:00, this is what you would have seen (and smelled): thick, exterior-semigloss blue splattered down our basement stairs and across the carpet at the bottom landing; Martin heading toward the epic mess with two measly paper towel squares, and me, (trying to see the humor in the situation while not setting off Martin, who is feeling grumpier than ever), looking in the refrigerator for my blue-paintbrush (yes, I'd wrapped it instead of cleaning it, knowing I'd need it again--and see, I did).

I encouraged us to count our blessings: what were the chances that Martin would have kicked down a can of paint in exactly the same shade as the stairs? Instead of cleaning it up, I explained, trying not to scoff at Martin's paper towels, let's just give those stairs a new coat of paint! This sounds easier than it actually was, since the paint was glopped all down one side of each stair, rendering the space where we could balance to paint very small and awkward, especially in our big furry slippers and jammies. Martin took the bottom landing and I took the stairs, carefully painting just half of each stair so Martin wouldn't be stranded, until I forgot and painted two whole stairs in a row. My careful resistance to laughter began to waver when Martin, paintbrush in hand, had to heave-ho up the flight of stairs with only four inches to rest his right foot at the top. At one point toward the end of the escapade he squatted like a frog, grasped the railing, and leaned down several stairs to finish painting the stair I'd also forgotten in what I'd mistakenly thought was fairly good logistical planning. Then he squatted for a while longer, as if meditating. "You're making me nervous," I said finally--I'd struggled against the urge to leave him for a moment to retrieve the camera, and now I stood behind him, ready to grab his p.j. shirt in case he suddenly lost balance and careened into the abyss.

"I'm not going to fall down the stairs," he assured me, and then he performed yet another yoga-like balancing trick to even out the paint several steps down. The fact that we weren't both covered in blue ("lupine" is the shade, by the way, and a very nice one) was miraculous.

That night in bed, Martin sat there reading (he'd gotten a second wind with all the painting). He was beyond accusations ("How long have those paint cans been at the top of the stairs?") and past grumpiness, and could finally see the humor in such a momentous accident. He stroked my shoulder lovingly and said, "I guess, considering we painted a flight of stairs tonight, that going to bed at midnight is pretty remarkable." And I concurred--it could have been so much worse--the ceiling could have fallen in, a pipe could have burst, our stove could have exploded. We'd gotten a little exercise to even out the cheesy tortilla chip consumption, too, and we wouldn't have to do laundry for another few days while the stairs dried. All in all, the great paint spill of 2011 turned out for the best.