Only the Bourgeois [Need Paint]

“Men are perfectly capable of carrying out simple household tasks; there is no need to remind them every six months…”

Texturing, or "How to Hide Your Imperfections"

One would have to allow seventy, six-month periods to elapse, before eclipsing my personal-best record for procrastination. Heck, this wasn’t procrastination-it was suffocation by default. Remind me to get it done every six months? No prob. Failing that, could we shoot for prior to the third generation arriving in March? *

The question is a reasonable one, after all, because I did sheet rock, tape and [primitively] mud the room. Why did I not follow through with at least a coat of primer? Gluten-Free Mama had made the bathroom look downright chic early on, but her poor half-sister, the laundry room, was left standing on the corner, lunchbox in-hand, the bus having long since departed.

Does saying, "It was better than
nothing," make it better?

Priorities, baby. HeadSodBuster was already three weeks old before we even got hot, running water in our little cabin, with the addition of the bathroom and hot water heater. You might take note that country-styled living lacked some of the glamor you have undoubtedly attached to it in the past.

I was scrambling to make ends meet, and working with Speedy Erection Construction Company, framing [mostly] small homes for those paying cash under the table. We asked no questions for the same reason that we forgot to post the county permits in plain sight, so that the inspector would not have to ask for it.

Rebels, every one of us.

Lo and behold! Along came Ben-Jam-In nineteen months after HeadSodBuster, and the price of poker went up. Through labor exchange, I had been able to add on a sizable, two-story rectangle, at minimal cost in 1984. We needed more room than a 16 by 20 cabin with a bathroom and laundry room attached. 

At that point in time, which would have been higher on the priority list, finishing the interior of the living room, pool room, boys’ bedroom, et al, or the-cough-laundry room? Put this way, where were we more likely to congregate? 

Even after priming it, I could have quit and been
ahead of the game, by 35 years.

Right, the only congregation going on in the laundry room, was a vast collection of dirty laundry, piling up, or congregating, as we liked to call it.

The other element that can’t be ignored, is that at least the little room had been rocked, mudded and taped. It’s not as though the bare insulation was still showing. Not anymore, anyway.

Furthermore, and I am skating on thin ice here, the laundry room has always had a roguish swagger to its stride, or at least until that bong rip. Then it’s more of a stagger, praise be. With a rep to uphold, the laundry room was more than satisfied to assume an unorthodox appearance.

Far out and solid, Man. Who needs paint? Only the bourgeois…

Would you buy a used car from any of this trio?

When we went from being two parents with two sons, to two parents with three sons, with the thunderous entrance of SmallBoy, priorities shifted once again. Already low on the list, the laundry room was simply deleted at some unknown point, and the rest is history.

History is being redefined, even as we speak, with the impending addition of the next generation. Last winter’s inundation of moisture, to a bone-dry region, left our bathroom destroyed by a leaky roof, since replaced by a metal roof this past summer.

It was a package deal from the get-go: Whatever happened to the bathroom, was also going to happen to the laundry room.  If Necessity is the mother of invention, and Dancing Girl is mother of the next generation, then Necessity must be the one demanding that I invent a reason to upgrade the laundry room. 

No need to remind me every six months [anymore].

* http://markyswrite.blogspot.com/2018/01/ollie-mac.html

I better slow down or I will kill the job...