Painted Windows

There are a lot of times that the women in my life can force me to do things that I don't want to do, and there are other times that I'm just completely unwilling to give in to their whims. This event was a result of...neither of those things. Instead, this was a weekend brought on by spite. Normally, when I find myself suffering from an absolute hatred of someone, I do everything in my power to stay away from said person...until they push me too far, after which I spend all of my waking hours ensuring that their life is as terrible as mine. Because I'm not at all a bad person or anything.

When Jill and Leigh had asked me to work with them in a window-painting contest, I refused...until I realized that I could use the event to torment Amber. What I didn't realize, at the time of agreeing to the event, was that it would be wholly unsatisfying to spend my day making someone else miserable. That's the kind of life lesson that kids should really learn before high school.

Jill and Leigh came and picked me up on Saturday morning, at some ungodly hour, and we drove downtown with a basket of muffins and a thermos of hot chocolate. It was the beginning of November, we were painting Christmas-themed images on the windows of downtown businesses, and we wouldn't find out who won the contest until our town's Christmas light-up, which would be a few weeks later.

When we got downtown, and found parking, we walked to our window, which was about as far out of the way as possible, and also unlikely to be seen by anyone that wasn't going out of their way to look for it, and met Amber there. She had her arms crossed and was tapping her foot on the ground, which, at first, I thought was an attempt to keep herself warm; turns out, she was just irritated that we hadn't shown up as promptly as she managed to, and decided that the best way to show said irritation would be through an clichéd imitation of an irritated sitcom housewife.

As soon as we were within earshot, Amber started, "nice timing, guys, I've only been here for ten minutes." If I hadn't had such love for Jill, I would never have put up with this kind of shit. But it's not like I didn't already know that Amber was a psychotic beast, so I shouldn't have been so surprised at her lack of tact.

A second point of contention for Amber was the fact that our window was on a side-street and unlikely to be viewed by the public. "We've been here for an hour and there hasn't been a single car passed by yet!" she would say. Jill rolled her eyes, "this is a good thing, because we don't have to worry about traffic behind us, there won't be any unexpected dirt flying up at our painting as cars pass by, and it'll be a lot quieter than the main roads." Leigh nodded "there won't be too much pedestrian traffic getting in our way, either," she said. Amber was not pleased by her friends disagreeing with her, but that didn't stop her complaining.

Since the local businesses didn't trust us to paint on the inside of their windows, assuming that we would slop paint all over their carpets, we were forced to tape our schematic on the inside, and then paint on the outside. This acted as just another thing for Amber to complain about.

The cold weather turned out not to be much of an issue, due mostly to the fact that the four of us were huddled together in front of a fairly small window space. What was an issue was the fact that, no matter what portions Amber and I were trying to paint individually, we constantly ended up getting in each other's way. After twenty minutes of me crouching down painting the foreground and Amber painting something above my head, all the while threatening to throw paint on me, Leigh decided it was time to take a break. Leigh also decided that she didn't want Amber and I to be breaking together at all, so we went in shifts, with Amber and Leigh taking the first twenty minute break, and Jill and I taking a break once they got back.

Jill and I made much progress while the other two were gone, and the day became, quite suddenly, much more pleasant without Amber's influence in the mix. When the two of them had returned, Jill and I went off on our own to have hot chocolate and cookies at the local café that our friend Noël worked at.

Because Jill and I like to leave a trail of destruction everywhere we go, the power at the café started flickering as soon as we walked through the doors, and went out completely as soon as we got to the front of the queue. "I'm sorry, guys, but there's nothing I can do for you without a working till," Noël told us, so Jill and I just sat down and waited. After about eighteen minutes had passed, we stood up and prepared to go back to work, not having had our cookies. And then the power came back on.

This is something that caused a great deal of conflict between the four of us. Since we now had the opportunity to have our drinks and snacks, we took it, and ended up spending an extra fifteen minutes in the café.

"You two took your time," Amber whined as soon as we got back. Even though Leigh wasn't saying anything, it was clear from her expression that she was thinking something similar. We explained what had happened with the power, and while that placated Leigh, it did nothing to stifle Amber's anger.

The weekend continued on in this manner, and we were all quite relieved when the last paint stroke had dried.

"I never want you to let me spend another day with her again." That's what I said as Jill and Leigh dropped me off at home when everything was finally finished. Jill nodded slowly, "I never want you to let me get trapped in the same room as the two of you again." Leigh snorted as she laughed, "does this mean you're not coming with us to the award ceremony?"

Well...damn. At least there was only one more day I needed to spend with Amber.