These people will be invaluable if a solar flare, super-volcano, meteor or AI singularity should send us back to the dark ages. We will need them to team up with my boomer dad and his brother to build shelters, create generators from old tractors and attach spikes to muscle cars so we can fight off other post-apocalyptic warriors. Useless people like me will be the first against the wall.
My status as a pathetic, impractical waste of space has been eating me up inside for years. So, a few weeks ago, I decided to paint my house. Prep the whole 1920s Auckland bungalow and then slap some Dulux on it.
Before starting the job, I stand on the street and picture the joy, accomplishment and self-worth I will experience when the job is done. Two hours later, I realise I am too useless to do it alone. Luckily, my father-in-law, two sons and mate Mike offer to help - and we’re away.
A good measure of how little a person knows about an endeavour is how long they spend buying things before they start work. It’s a bad sign if you spend more time leaving the site to get stuff than you do doing the job.
I spend the first three days going back and forth between Bunnings and Dulux. When I am not purchasing cool tools, rust-converting liquids and every shape of brush, I am making playlists for the Bluetooth speaker or getting refreshments for those who are actually working.
Everyone knows prep is the key. You have never looked at your house the way you do when you are getting it ready to be painted. A perfectly good abode that has kept your family warm and dry for years suddenly transforms before your eyes into a broken-down box of problems.
Weatherboards need replacing, holes need bogging, and window frames need to be smashed and thrown in the rubbish. As punishing as this stage is, you feel very grateful you are doing the job now. It quickly becomes apparent you couldn’t have waited another day to start.
After you have scrapped, sanded, brushed, sealed, bogged, primed and replaced your entire property, it is time to paint. This part isn’t work. After the prep, painting is a joy. Slapping Duck Egg Blue around the place is a holiday. The rapid progress is glorious.
Another thing you learn when painting your house is who your friends are. If a mate comes around and grabs a wire brush, that is a true friend.
Then there are the heartwarming moments.
At one point, my son, his grandfather and I worked together on the roof. My love of cricket stems from helping my dad sand our roof as a kid. A summer spent up there listening to the Plunket Shield on the radio. Now, I am doing the same thing with my son. Except it’s the Alternative Commentary Collective on iHeartRadio.
We’re three weeks in and the house isn’t done yet, but it is getting very close. I feel much less useless as I stand back on the street and look at our achievements.
Painting your house is an education; it grows you as a person and hardens you. Your silky soft hands gain credible calluses, cuts and stains.
It’s a journey that will teach you a million practical things. You are now an expert who notices how rubbish the paint jobs are on other people’s houses. “Did those losers even prime that flashing?” My house is perfect in comparison.
Now, if the worst should happen, I would no longer be the first person you’d throw on the fire to keep others warm. After all this, I might be close to being a little bit useful.
