Extreme Painting

In a bid to do as much as he can to make our new place feel like “home,” David is throwing himself into home improvement projects. I wouldn’t mind so much (on the contrary, I’d be grateful) if his work did not always seem to involve some level of danger. This week he embarked on “extreme painting.” He set up two ladders — one at the bottom of a staircase, the other at the top – and balanced a narrow beam of wood on a rung from each ladder. Then, as if there wasn’t a long drop to the bottom of the staircase should he fall from his little stick, he scooted and crawled along it so that he could paint the corner of the wall near the ceiling.

As I paced and passed him canisters and napkins, my eyes bugged out of my head and my heart raced faster than Secretariat. “This stress is going to kill me,” I said. A jolt when through me as the legs of one ladder lifted a centimeter off the floor. “This is stupid. You didn’t want the painters to be in danger, but you’ll do this yourself? You’re trying to kill me.”

David rolled his eyes. “Remember what we talked about,” he said. “I don’t expect you to help with any of this stuff, but you can’t be an obstructionist.”

“Then I can’t watch,” I said. Fortunately, our friends Rosa and Josue had come over to check out the new digs. Josue volunteered to spot David. “Rosa, let’s go for a walk, I can’t handle this,” I said. From the look on my friend’s face, neither could she. “Josue, you don’t let him fall. Okay?” Josue nodded. “David, you keep rolling your eyes like that, and you’ll lose your balance. Stop it.”

On my way down the stairs, I shimmied around one of the ladders supporting my man. “There are better, faster ways to kill me, you know,” I shouted up at him as I headed for the door. Then, to Rosa, I said, “If he falls off that thing, I’m going to kill him.”