the thing I find most grating
about painting & decorating
is the endless fucking preparation
an eternity of rubbing down and shit
the moment you think you’re done with it – you ain’t
you’ll be twenty years dead in the ground before you actually get to paint

anyway – what is this?
did you think I was thinking of setting up in business?

hear this:

I will never
EVER
be a painter & decorator

I cannot imagine a torment greater

but whilst we’re on the subject
of half-assed DIY projects
and the bristling abuse of inanimate objects
here’s a strange thing that happened to me
while I was painting the downstairs lavatory

(true story)

I flicked a speck of something in my eye
and being a practical, medical kind of guy
I turned to the sink for a nifty little washout
and the shaving mirror to help me get it out
but instead of my reflection I saw grout
like a paint-covered vampire forgetting what reflections were all about

my god – had I completely decorated myself out?

I no longer existed
I just consisted
of a cough, a grimace, a cutting-in brush
RSI and a dose of thrush

I was thrown headlong into an existential nightmare

(but as you’re probably already aware
I’d momentarily forgotten
I’d taken
the mirror down
when I got the place ready for rubbing down)

so – the moral of this story?
this painting & decorating purgatory?
if you find yourself looking at a colour chart
let me give you a heart-to-heart
I beg you – don’t go through with it
PAY SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT