Dookies in the Paint Chip Aisle

Saturday, 25 February 2012 10:26

Written by Richard Gandon

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So I walk into one of those big box stores that sells hardware because they’re the only ones open on a Friday evening.  I need paint, black paint to be specific.

I walk up to the counter, patiently wait my turn and then guy says “How can I help you?”

I respond “I’d like two gallons of flat black paint please.”

The guy says “Okay, what color do you want?”

Thinking that maybe the guy had was a little slow, I replied “Black, two gallons please.”

The guys says “What color?”

I look around to see if an Allen Funt-like character is hiding in the next aisle or something and then replied “TWO—GAL-LOOONNNSSS—OF—BLLAAAACCKK—PAAIINNTT.”

Then the guy says “What shade of black do you want?”

I see, now we’re communicating here, we have a connection or something; we’re on the same wavelength now.  So I respond “How about a black shade of black?”

The guy is getting a little exasperated and says “Sir, you have to tell me a shade of black so that I can mix it, that’s the way it works these days.”

Oh, I see, that’s the way it works these days, because I haven’t bought paint in so long and I don’t know what I’m doing.  Well excuse me Mr. Master Mixologist.  I’ll bet the next thing he tells me is that they don’t put lead in the paint anymore either, but I digress.

Now I have heard of shades of gray but shades of black?  No.  Black is black is it not?

I slowly looked to my right.  Then I slowly looked to my left.  Then I look directly into the guy’s eyes searching desperately for any signs; even a glimmer of intelligent life and then said quietly “Do you see my wife standing here?”

The guy looks around and then says  “No.”

Okay, we’re finally in agreement here, maybe we’re getting somewhere.

“Okay” I said to the guy, "dude, how about two gallons of My-wife-ain't-here-so-don't-give-a-rat's-backside-black?"

The guy, obviously single and for good reason no doubt, doesn’t understand a word I just said.

Every married guy reading this who has ever made the mistake of discussing paint options with their spouse knows precisely what I’m talkin’ ‘bout but this guy hasn’t got a freakin’ clue!

Every married guy reading this who has ever made the mistake of discussing paint options with their spouse will respond convincingly with “I have absolutely no idea what he was talking about in that Dookies in the Pool blog post dear” when asked by the aforementioned spouse if he knows what I am talking about.

It didn’t really matter anyway because it seems that they are out of 'My-wife-ain't-here-so-don't-give-a-rat's-backside-black' too.

“How about midnight black?” said Mr. Helpful.

“I think I’d prefer 2:30 in the morning and I can’t sleep black, it's a darker shade of black.”

Apparently '2:30 in the morning and I can’t sleep black' isn’t in the computer system so it can’t be mixed.  I was however informed that if I could bring in a sample of '2:30 in the morning and I can't sleep black' that they could match it.  I'll try to capture some in a jar the next time I wake up at 2:30 in the morning.

They did however have paint chips for the color black I was told.

Fortunately a young lady arrived behind the counter, I asked for black, she punched ‘Jet Black’ into her computer and I was in business.

As my two gallons of ‘Jet Black’ was mixing, I went looking for black paint chips.

Whaddaya know?  They really do have paint chips for the color black.   I know because I actually now possess 8 freakin’ different shades of black paint chips.

Who knew?

So there is:

“Black Suede”

“Deep Space” Black

“Cinema Star” Black

“Onyx Black”

“Beluga” Black

“Francesca” Black

“Silhouette” Black

and finally “Galaxy Black”.

They all look black to me although “Galaxy Black” strikes me as having some blue in it but they call it black anyway.  Of course Galaxy Black is a Disney color and Disney did manage to convince the Coast Guard to allow them to paint the lifeboats on Disney Cruise line ships ‘Mickey Mouse Shoe Yellow’ instead of regulation Orange, so I suppose they can add blue to black and call it whatever they want.

The funny thing is that I couldn’t find a paint chip for Midnight Black or Jet Black so there must be even more shades of black out there than I thought.

Of course having to wait while my black paint was being mixed, I had time to ponder which admittedly isn’t always the best thing for me to be doing.

Galaxy Black and Deep Space black—really?  Isn’t the galaxy part of deep space or perhaps deep space is part of the Galaxy?  How did they get a sample of the Galaxy’s or Deep Space’s version of black?  Can you really see that deep into space to get the color right? 

Same with Beluga.  Did they have the whale hold still while they figured out what shade of black would look best on the whale?

Why did Francesca get her own shade of black?  Maybe everyone should get their own shade of black too.

Imagine me walking in and asking for two gallons of ‘Richard Black’.

They have Silhouette black but not Shadow black.  Shouldn’t they pretty much be the same thing?

Jet black raises another question entirely.  I plugged ‘Jet Black images’ into a search engine and there were far more shots of automobiles, motorcycles and other black items than there were of jets.  ‘Black Jet images’ fared slightly better—somebody actually does have a black private jet so I suppose it works out.

I for one would like to see "Suffern D.A.R.E. Truck Black".  Something tells me that I’m going to have to wait until the hot wheels car comes out before I see that color on anything else.

I was amazed, after looking at the plethora of different colored paint chips, how anyone manages to buy paint.  How exactly does one know if they have found the perfect shade?

I suppose they bring their wife with them along with throw pillows, rugs, pieces of furniture and the china pattern.

In my humble opinion, there should be two different paint chip color choice areas; one for women and women who drag their husbands into the store and one for men only.

The ’women’s and women who drag their husbands in’ section would remain as-is—gazillions of colors, shades and color combinations.  That's right, just leave it the way it is and say a quiet prayer for the husbands.

The men-only section however would have a limited palette.  I’m thinking a Crayola-type selection.  If one went with the standard Crayola 8-pack selection, one would have Brown, Black, Violet, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red to choose from.  That pretty much covers the spectrum.  If you wanted to get a little more adventurous you could choose from the 16-pack which includes the aforementioned colors and adds, White, Carnation Pink, Blue-Violet, Blue Green, Yellow-Green, Yellow-Orange, Red-Orange and Red-Violet.

A 64-pack might win a husband a few Brownie points and even the entire regular Crayola color spectrum of 133 colors would be manageable except perhaps for one or two colors.  I can see “Fuzzy Wuzzy” and “Cerulean” causing some marital issues: “Can you believe it Martha?  I send him to buy paint for the guest bathroom and he comes back with Fuzzy Wuzzy.  How do I live with a Fuzzy Wuzzy guest bathroom?”  

On second thought, perhaps we should limit it to 131 Crayola colors instead.

In case you’re wondering, the black paint was used to paint part of the set for RP Connor Elementary School’s production of Aladdin on March 30^th and 31^st.

I am extremely confident that when the curtain opens, nobody will sit back and say “You know honey, they did a really great job with the set design, but I really think that the Cinema Star Black would have been a much better choice than the Jet Black that they used.”