MY BRUSHES WITH DISASTER

Since the word MESS is my middle name, I started painting the kitchen cabinets yesterday. This is going to be a month-long project, in my estimation--maybe longer, as I’m doing one section at a time rather than taking everything down all at once. I expect to apply three coats of paint, and each coat must dry overnight.

I have a history of painting mishaps, thanks to various cats that have lived with me over the years. Once, after spending an entire evening putting up blue painter’s tape throughout the living room, the next morning everything I’d lined along the floor and baseboards had been ripped up and rolled into sticky balls by Shadow Cat.

Another time, when I was painting in the back porch, I failed to secure the lid on tightly to a partial gallon of white paint. Mama Kitty accidentally tipped it over from the box on which it was setting, and the textured brown tile floor became ruined in a split second.

The funniest cat/paint caper was when my ex left a tray of blue paint on the bathroom floor to take a nap while I was out of town. I returned home to a house full of blue paw prints--not just on the tile and hardwood floors but also on the sofa, coffee table, countertops--anywhere a cat had been, there were the tell-tale signs. I shook awake the ex with a few choice words and made him wipe up the disaster. Luckily for him, the paint was latex-based.

So, it’s with some trepidation that I start another big indoor painting project with four hairy helpers snooping around. Yesterday went well, though, so I’m forging ahead and hoping there won’t be any cat-astrophes this time around.