REDRUM ... REDRUM ....

Saturday morning I'm reading the newspaper and there's a flyer for a local furniture store.

And there it was.

The sofa we've looked at, contemplated buying and had already fallen in love with.

$200 off its regular price.

"HONEY!!!" I screamed. "The sofa we've looked at, contemplated buying and had already fallen ...."

"How much?" she asked.

"Two hundred dollars off," I gasped while trying to catch my breath.

"Get the car and meet me out front," she said.

"Don't you want to put a bra on first?" I asked.

"Get me a bra, the car and meet me out front."

Got to the store, Andrew found one of those adjustable beds to play on while Susie and I sat on the sofa like Ma and Pa Kettle come to town and buy a sofa.

"It's firm," I said as I bounced up and down on it with my big ass. "We'll take it!"

The sales guy was a bit off-put. He'd never met us and hadn't seen us on our bi-monthly visits to the store to sit on the sofa and pretend we owned it.

So he's working his sales pitch, telling us about his grandkids, etc. etc. All the shit that salespeople do to make you feel sorry for them and buy from them.

"Speed it up, Gramps," I said. "We've got a sofa to have delivered."

The guy said he could deliver it on Monday between the hours of 8 and 5.

Thanks for narrowing it down, Captain. I woulda preferred 8 and 9, but you guys just do what you can.

So we're driving home from the store and this is where it got ignorant.

Before I knew what happened, it just fell out of my mouth.

"You know ... if we're putting this in the office ... the office could sure use some paint."

GODDAMMIT.

HOW IN THE HELL DID THAT JUST COME OUT AGAIN IN LESS THAN A WEEK?!?

Now I had a wedding reception to do about two hours away. So as soon as we made it home, I jumped in the van and took off for my wedding reception and we continued this conversation over the phone.

I told her I wanted something kind of ... dark.

She went to Home Depot and got something dark alright.

Crimson red.

You know ... blood red.

Now I had given her full authority to pick out the color of paint.

But ... blood red??

What is this ... A Nightmare On My Street?

The wedding reception went great, I loved the bride because she had such cool tastes in music (Wilco, Muddy Waters) and usually if a bride wants music that's not your ordinary reception music I tell them that we need to keep it more mainstream.

But we didn't and subsequently, people left quickly.

Normally that's a bummer, but the bride and groom had to drive four hours to catch a plane so they were ready to go.

And I had a room to paint blood red.

So it worked out for everyone except the guests of the reception who went home saying "Why in the hell was that DJ playing such depressing music??"

I got home about 10:30 and the room was still full of junk like furniture, TVs, computers, etc.

We emptied the room out and squeezed it into the rest of the house which has yet to recover from last week's rearranging of rooms.

We worked until about 1 a.m. at which point I declared my official candidacy for Mayor of Bedville, population me.

Got up at 5 a.m.

Put the primer on the walls.

It was a pink primer.

As we have now learned ... it should have been a gray primer.

We've also learned that the dipshit at the Home Depot counter has no fucking clue as to what type of primer goes with what color.

We then put the first coat of paint on.

It looks like hell on a stick.

"That's okay," I said. "The second coat will look better."

Captain Optimism at your service, bitch.

The second coat doesn't look much better.

Susie, who is my official trim girl who does all the stuff in the corners, where the ceiling meets the walls and where the walls meets the base board ... her heart was sinking fast on this project.

"It looks like shit" she kept repeating.

"It'll look better!" I chirped.

Wrong.

This is the type of color that would make Charles Manson cringe.

Last night, after the couch was delivered (at 3:15 ... thanks fuckers! I took a whole day off for this?!?) we sat in the room with the lights turned down low.

"You can't see anything" she complained.

I turned the lights up a bit.

"This color hurts my eyes."

I agreed.

The walls are too dark for the size of the room.

Anyway ... running out of time here ... those of you with cataracts, shield your eyes accordingly.

Never ever ever again.