Every year we volunteer for Rebuilding Together, a not-for-profit organization of volunteers who join together in rebuilding and repairing the homes of those in need.  This year we were at a home in Akron, OH along with a group of realtors from Howard Hanna and The University of Akron’s ASID student chapter. Three of us had the task of painting the master bedroom - ceiling, walls, and trim.

Rachel was cracking the whip and assigning tasks. One volunteer named Berger came up with an excuse.  Rachel responded, “Berger, I’m not buying what you’re selling.” Speaking of cracks, her crack was hanging out of her low rider jeans. Her friend announced, “Rachel, plumber’s crack.”  Rachel came back without a second of hesistation, ”Yea but you like it.”  

The reason that I hire a professional painter for my own home (which I update frequently) is that wet paint and I don’t get along. The first incident occurred when I noticed a patch of the brand new carpet not covered by a dropcloth. As I opened the dropcloth my arm knocked over the tray of paint on the ladder, all over myself and the fresh uncovered carpet. Rachel, my loyal assistant, literally had to give me the shirt off her back (she had three more on - several to spare).

Being the eager volunteer that I am and not easily discouraged, I did not hesitate to jump back on a ladder with a tray of wet paint and get to that blue ceiling. After a while a while of everything going smoothly, I moved the ladder not realizing that the paint tray protruded considerably, and the ladder went right into the wall, paint tray first. Naturally an enormous amount of white paint (not the wall color) poured down the wall, trim, and onto another uncovered spot of that new carpet.

Rachel mentioned that I had two strikes already and it wasn’t even lunch time yet. I can proudly say by the end of the day I didn’t strike out and we got all of the paint off the carpet. Rachel met her goal that day, to not break a nail, and the room looked stunning. We had a great time volunteering and the homeowner was full of smiles, tears of joy, and hugs for all of the volunteers.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 12:59 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.