Start at the Back

file under: Engineering boasting

When my dad was alive, there were a couple of jokes that he always made. If he ever saw anybody laying turf, or if it came up in conversation he would shout "Green side up!". Similarly if he saw someone painting a floor he would shout "Start at the back!".

The weekend before last I either painted a garage floor or played the worst game of Towers of Hannoi ever. I thought that I had taken everything that I needed out of the garage, I mixed up the paint, and I did start at the back, painting with a roller on a long handle. When I had done about a third of the garage and I couldn’t possibly stop, the roller broke. The first thing that was the wrong side of a large area of wet paint was the rubbish bin to throw away the broken roller. I did have a spare roller with me but it turned out not to fit on the extension handle. All the tools, screws, tape and everything useful was now inaccessible. I just avoided having to do the whole job on my hands and knees by sacrificing a garden rake and quickly whittling its handle down with a penknife to form a temporary extension handle.

While the paint was drying I tried to mow the lawn. I had brought the mower, the fuel, the oil, the mixing bottle and the battery booster with me. Of course the main jet was blocked and the whitworth spanners were on the other side of an acreage of wet paint.

Richard “RIP Rico” B