Nazi Neighbors

October 19, 2010 at 10:38 am (Home + Decor)
Tags: Home Depot, Mayfield, music studio, Nazis

I don’t think any project is worth doing unless it brings you to the point of tears at least once. Take the studio for instance. I’ve cried twice in one week over it. We began with re-painting of course. Slapped some warm gray on the walls without too much difficulty…… so far so good. Clark has two pieces of actual furniture designated for that room– a  desk and a bookshelf. How hard can it be to spray paint a desk and a bookshelf? Well, three trips to Home Depot and seven cans of black spray paint later,  I had not only finished the furniture, but I was getting to know Lou from the paint department so well, I half expected him to invite us to Thanksgiving dinner. What these men must think when they see me coming in to Home Depot…. again…. with my 2 babies and a pony tail for yet another can of spray paint. “Here comes the paint lady again. She’s probably hanging around here hoping to find a daddy for those two children.”

We live in a nice neighborhood. It is beautiful and historic with luscious tree-lined streets. No two houses look alike and most of them are at least a century year old. We are surrounded by quaint shops, cafes, and pubs- people walking their dogs, mommies pushing strollers, and older couples hand-in-hand enjoying the end of the day on their porch swings. Most Saturday mornings, a race for a cause or a cure will take place right outside my front door– my neighbors, their dogs, and sometimes their kids, all smiles, running with a sense of pride and purpose. It is practically Mayfield. Well, we certainly made an impression on our neighbors this week. I did not put a tarp down on the lawn while I was using… yes… black spray paint on my husband’s bookshelves. And wouldn’t you know it, I just so happened to lay those suckers out perfectly so that after the they were dried and removed, the outline of the paint from the edge of the shelves made the shape of a giant swastika. We’ve never been “lawn” people, but this is bad even for us. I’m sure at this weekend’s race, all smiles will surely fade when they pass our house and see that Nazi’s have moved into their wholesome little neighborhood. The old couples on their porch swings will say things like, “That corner house…. I think they’re musicians or something. Better call the city and have ’em reported.” Clark tried to play it cool since I, after all, was doing him a favor. But for the last few days, we’ll be in the middle of dinner or pumping gas and he’ll say, “what do you think we ought to do about the lawn?” He suggested we get festive and perhaps put one of those giant inflatable pumpkins over our vandalized grass. We bounced ideas back and forth until one of us said we should put a life-size manger scene out front– send the message that Jesus loves Nazi’s too. We both screamed with laughter and made yet a fourth trip to Home Depot to see if Lou could give us something that would remove the paint without killing our grass and thus burning Nazi symbolism into our yard permanently. No such luck. We’re Nazi’s ’til the grass grows out.