Doorn't You Forget About Me

I finished heat-gun-stripping that door, when, Tuesday? And I was going to sand it, but I didn’t want to sand it and later find out I’d missed a step and had to sand it again. ’Cuz I’d kill it. I’d kill it, and its fucking parents would sue me and it’d be a big mess and I don’t care enough about it to bother…

So I waited to ask Johnny.

And Johnny said “Just sand it.”

So I killed him.

No, no, nobody’s dead (well, the spider that was crawling on my arm in bed last night – he’s not so much alive anymore. But nobody that didn’t come from hell to begin with has been sent there lately, is what I’m saying.)

Seriously, Johnny says all I have to do is sand and paint and I’m done. That’s it. This whole dirty job will be done with. But he says I have to use the spin sander.

I don’t trust myself with the spin sander. I’m afraid I’m going to leave little spin-spun hypnotic vortices all over the door in little Hurricane Erin patterns. Like the floor in this one apartment that we rented, where someone who obviously didn’t know what he was doing apparently thought refinishing hardwood was a job any monkey could accomplish. Stupid monkey…

I asked Johnny if I couldn’t just use sandpaper, and he said probably not but seriously there was no way I could screw it up. He’d get the spin sander for me and the pads I’d need before we left for work, so I could have at it in the afternoon. This would have been Wednesday afternoon.

Except he couldn’t find the spin sander. And if he can’t find it, I sure as hell don’t know where to look, because have you seen our basement? He did bring up a piece of rough (#60) sandpaper for me to use, but I wasn’t going to sand with paper if I was only going to have to go over it again later when the spin sander showed up…

So the #60 paper has been sitting on the windowsill in the back hall for going on three days. Right next to the door (going on, erm, three weeks? longer?). I was going to have at it yesterday, but when I got home from work there was a message from the Kid. The furnace is coming today! Which meant I had to clear out the back hall so they’d have room to lug it through. And you know the rules: anything related to the furnace project counts as a house-job for that day.

Oh, Prudence, you are so smart!

You might remember that I did this once before, but Johnny put everything back one afternoon because we didn’t know how long we’d be waiting for the furnace and he was tired of having to reach over the bookcase to get himself a Jammie Dodger in the night (he’s not that tall, my Johnny, and he does love a sweetie in the wee smalls). So I took the hour that I’d set aside for sanding and watched my Secret Dirty Boyfriend with it instead. During commercial breaks I moved the door, shoved the bookcase, sorted the recycling.

(My SDB was in another wetsuit, by the way, and I’ll tell you this: I don't know if he’s a big gay homosexual or not, but I’m fairly certain he’s no son of Isaac – or Ishmael, for that matter – if you know what I’m saying.)

So I can’t sand that door this afternoon, because it’s in the kitchen. I could take it outside, but it’s raining (too bad). Prudence did say that anything to do with the furnace project counts as work, and writing checks can be damned exhausting…

I’ll tell you what? Well, actually, no. I was going to say I’d at least find the spin-sander if it killed me, but the Kid’s going to be down cellar all afternoon, and I wouldn’t want to be in anybody’s way…

CONTEST ALERT: Anybody want to explain that first paragraph for those who weren't in high school in 1985? I'll write a poem for whoever gets it first. (PS The title's another hint. Hey, it can't always be Shakespeare...)