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Potentially psychic
Mar. 27th, 2009 12:06 pmLast night I dreamt I received a letter telling me I'd won a tin of paint. I don't usually remember my dreams and I think we can all see why now: my subconscious is kindly trying not to bore me.
The thing is, though, despite not being a competition enterer by nature, a couple of months ago I actually did enter a home renovation competition for which one of the prizes was, yes, a supply of exterior paint. It happened like this: one day I had a conversation with my mother (who is my landlady) about painting the house and a couple of days later I saw this competition in a magazine, which required twenty-five words (or less, as they say) about a colourful painting experience. As is happens, I have had a colourful painting experience, and, while ordinarily twenty-five words is half the first sentence in one of my stories, I managed to condense it into the required limit, sent the entry off and promptly forgot all about it until my victorious dream last night. I've just checked and winners will be decided on March 30. So what's the dream about? A late bid from my subconscious to demonstrate amazing psychic abilities, perhaps? Or just a coincidence?
And the story? Well, when I was little, we renovated our farmhouse kitchen, which included painting the walls a sort of pale yellow-green and making a feature of the fireplace by painting it a darker green. When the renovations were done, some of the wall paint needed a little touch-up, which my mother did, holding the pale yellow-green paint in the first small, clean vessel she could find, which was a styrofoam cup. My mother, for all her many good points, is hopeless at putting things away and so when she finished painting, she washed the brush but left the styrofoam cup of pale paint sitting on the dark mantelpiece.
I don't know if you've ever researched what paint does to styrofoam, but I can tell you: it corrodes. It took a few hours, but eventually the cup collapsed and the dark mantelpiece and new floor were splattered with yellow-green paint. Fortunately, my grandmother, who would have had kittens if she'd seen it, was out of the house; my mother, my grandfather and I wiped up every last tiny yellow-green spot before she came home, giggling madly, and agreed that she should never know. And she never did.
All that aside, ( here is my new felt scarf: )
The thing is, though, despite not being a competition enterer by nature, a couple of months ago I actually did enter a home renovation competition for which one of the prizes was, yes, a supply of exterior paint. It happened like this: one day I had a conversation with my mother (who is my landlady) about painting the house and a couple of days later I saw this competition in a magazine, which required twenty-five words (or less, as they say) about a colourful painting experience. As is happens, I have had a colourful painting experience, and, while ordinarily twenty-five words is half the first sentence in one of my stories, I managed to condense it into the required limit, sent the entry off and promptly forgot all about it until my victorious dream last night. I've just checked and winners will be decided on March 30. So what's the dream about? A late bid from my subconscious to demonstrate amazing psychic abilities, perhaps? Or just a coincidence?
And the story? Well, when I was little, we renovated our farmhouse kitchen, which included painting the walls a sort of pale yellow-green and making a feature of the fireplace by painting it a darker green. When the renovations were done, some of the wall paint needed a little touch-up, which my mother did, holding the pale yellow-green paint in the first small, clean vessel she could find, which was a styrofoam cup. My mother, for all her many good points, is hopeless at putting things away and so when she finished painting, she washed the brush but left the styrofoam cup of pale paint sitting on the dark mantelpiece.
I don't know if you've ever researched what paint does to styrofoam, but I can tell you: it corrodes. It took a few hours, but eventually the cup collapsed and the dark mantelpiece and new floor were splattered with yellow-green paint. Fortunately, my grandmother, who would have had kittens if she'd seen it, was out of the house; my mother, my grandfather and I wiped up every last tiny yellow-green spot before she came home, giggling madly, and agreed that she should never know. And she never did.
All that aside, ( here is my new felt scarf: )