The pandemic spreading again has created Operation Housewreck

When renovations go splat

The pandemic’s growling again. People stuck home again. Which means everyone’s cleaning up, cleaning closets, cleaning out. It’s called Operation Housewreck.

Redoing your place, know immediately that your painter has taken the Oath of Sadism. Act 1, he dribbles color on your rugs.

What hits the walls is a bonus.

He then explains that whatever you specifically want him to do — this he can’t do.

Wallpaper an alcove? No, this he can’t do. This needs a union wallpaperer. Painters spill more than they’d need for a whole room plus they paint items nobody wants painted — like floors.

So I figured he’d maybe work on something I really wanted — like freshen a frame around the window. No, this he can’t do because this type of thing requires spraying. For this you need a licensed sprayer.

Sticky situation

Painters only paint. Whatever’s in front of them they paint. A Rembrandt’s on a wall — they paint over it. And always tell you what great places they’ve done. Like that “Mona Lisa”? He’ll say, “Oh, please, I did her mother’s apartment in Forest Hills.”

One guy schmeared color on his arm instead of my windowsill. I said, “Put on a light.” He said, “Can’t. For that you got to hire a union electrician.”

The boss painter came to check. I greeted him. Such attention he never even got at home. I said the color I wanted was off-white. Not yellowy or creamy. I placed three sample swatches on a table. Nothing from the boss painter. A fixed look of death was already on his lime green brow.

Resuscitated, he then belched my color palette to his entire staff of one guy on the ladder: “White. She wants white.”

It’s a contract hit

Summer became winter. He was still there. I made plans to redo my guest room so he could permanently live in. He knocked, scraped, schmeared so vociferously that sympathetic holes appeared in other walls. My three-day job was now his life’s work.

I thought of printing personalized napkins that read “Cindy and the Painter.”

Relations became strained when I uttered the dreaded words “extra coat.” You may use the words “extra” or “coat” safely — but not together. Say “extra coat” and your painter will foam, twitch, blanch — and nothing but a hypodermic plus a half-inch of cash will neutralize his fit. And if you have the cash you can shove the hypodermic.

Invisible men

Mondays must be their legal holidays. Never do they begin early in the week so they can finish Friday. They always start Thursday so your home can stay wrecked over the weekend.

Michelangelo spent four years doing the Sistine Chapel. I now know why. He had my same painter.

Finally, when it was over and nothing was left to redo except where it was getting dirty already, this painter and I exchanged phone numbers preparatory to getting together socially. That was when I looked all around my place and came slowly to the realization that, sadly, I didn’t even like the color.

ENOUGH already with aging semi-naked females constantly flashing their various naked parts for photographers. There’s a rumor that Ben Affleck’s wife just had her chest insured for $1 million. And that was just against theft.

Only in NY, LA and everywhere else, only in NY, LA and anywhere else.