I’m Still A Chimp.
Thursday, April 27th, 2006I spent the morning at the new house painting our bedroom an interesting shade of chartreuce. I have a history of painting spaces green. Each green I’ve tried has it’s own personality, and it’s own sense of charm and weirdness. I like this one probably the best of any greens I’ve tried. It’s swatch name, “Artichoke Hearts”, is actually a pretty accurate way to describe this color. Maybe waking up inside of an artichoke heart every morning will encourage me to eat more salad.
The house is coming along, but has been a major area of stress in my life. Basil spends most of his days there, using screw guns and hammers, and electric sanders. And I pretty much stay away because being around any kind of construction project brings back traumatic memories of college, and how I barely graduated because I’m too retarded to use a hammer.
In order to graduate with my degree in theatre, I was required to take a class called “Stagecraft”. I was excited to take the class, because it was taught by a tall hot redhead with glasses who wore a toolbelt. And well, I HAD to take the class to graduate, so there I was, sitting in a class where I would be graded on how well I could put shit together, and draw scale replicas of miniature theatre sets.
I’m good at a lot of things. I have a gift for gab, a good sense of humor, and I generally can figure out how to make something work, even if the instruction manual is written in Japanese. But when it comes to handyman type tasks, I am a complete and utter spaz. And I was faced with a semester of trying to fake my way through a mandatory course that was going to challenge every spastic cell in my body. I knew things were not going to be okay when I caught the Stagecraft shop on fire during the first week of the course.
I still claim total innocence when it comes to actually starting the fire. The fire started because a box fan circa 1962 was plugged into the wall directly next to the table where I was working, and short circuited, creating a spark that happened to combust into a full blown fireball, due to the noxious gases emitted from the accelerant of Liquid Nails I just happen to be applying to some cheap floor tiles that were probably going to be used in the fake kitchen for some badly acted Sam Shepard vehicle. The next thing I knew, the entire scrap wood pile was beginning to smoke, and I found myself completely alone and practically on fire.
“Um, FIRE! Helllooooo? Is anybody else in here? FIRE!!! FIRE!!!”, I yelled from the shop, trying not to abandon the possibility of putting it out myself, but not really committing to the idea of going up in flames to graduate with a degree that guaranteed me a lifetime of jobs as a cocktail waitress. Everyone else in the class was on the stage, hammering, using power tools, and hanging out with the hot redhead with the toolbelt. I was the only person assigned to Liquid Nail duty. It was that apparent that I was not qualified to draw hammer to nail, and that killing a few more brain cells with the fumes wasn’t going to really be all that noticable long term.
After what seemed like an eternity, a few hot theatre boys and the hot redhead with the toolbelt came running into the shop. I think the smoke alarm may have been sounding off. I don’t really remember. All I really remember is standing in the middle of the shop, holding a paint brush covered in napalm, and the hot redhead pulling off his prescription safety goggles, and screaming, “What the hell did you do?”
The sarcastic part of my brain took over. [brain] Me? What did I do? Oh, you mean this stuff is flammable? I was using it as bong water! [/brain]
I stood back while the hot redhead with the toolbelt grabbed a fire extinguisher from his office and doused the flames. I commented on how maybe the first rule of Stagecraft should be , “Always know where to find the fire extinguisher.” There was no major damage done to the shop, but the damage was certainly done to my chances of getting more than a C in Stagecraft, no matter how tight I wore my apron over my sheer pink tee shirts. For the rest of the semester I was given the pity jobs around the set. “Paint this wall white.” “Iron these curtains.” “Sort these screws by size.” I was the shop chimpanzee.
Not much has changed. I still can’t hammer a nail into a board without bending it. I can’t even put together pre-fabricated furniture. I tried putting together a closet organizer earlier this week, and wound up throwing it halfway across the room in frustration. I’m still the shop chimp. But now, it’s my own house. So, I’ve graduated to homeowner chimp. And it’s become crystal clear why I have always been attracted to hot redheads with toolbelts, like the one I married.