Ill-Equipped To Paint A Mailbox

So what do you call the thing that holds the mailbox? I wasn’t actually painting the mailbox, jut the wood part that holds the mailbox. I’m sure Bob Vila has proper terminology but until I know what that is, we will refer to it as the mailbox thingy. The mailbox thingy needed painted.

My children are gone for a week, on vacation with their grandparents. I have a long list of things I’ve vowed to get done and one item was to paint the mailbox. Easy peasy right?

At 10 am this morning I marched down to the mailbox with my little can of white paint, a plastic spoon, the silver thing that opens the paint and my value, $3.99 paint brush. I opened the can and began to stir the paint with the plastic spoon. I then laid the spoon on the lid that I had unknowingly set next to a dried turd. Awesome. I dipped my over-sized brush in the can, pulled it out and began to press it along the can opening to squeeze the excess off. I began to paint slowly, gliding my arm up and down. I was the Karate Kid and I had Mr. Miyagi in my head directing me.

“Up and down….it’s all in the wrist. Long stroke…..ahh….dat’s good.”

Well apparently Mr. Miyagi wasn’t paying attention to my work because I painted over my black house numbers in my zen like state.

“Ohh….damn it!” I said under my breath.

I took my finger nails and began to scrape the paint off the black numbers with only about a 50% success rate. It really looked like ass.

‘How am I even going to get between these numbers to paint?’ I questioned. I realized I needed a screwdriver. I put the paint and brush down and ran into the house to find one. Of course there was no screwdriver anywhere and I wasn’t going in to our train wreck garage to find one. I found one that I knew was too large but thought that perhaps if I wish it to become smaller, it would by the time I got down to the mailbox.

“Damn it!”

I had no idea how A. I was going to get the paint off the numbers and B. how I was going to paint in the crevasses of the numbers. I knew I didn’t have the proper tools but this was go time, I have zero patience and knew if I didn’t do this now, I never would.

I sat the can and brush down again and mall walked into the house. I went to the bathroom and grabbed 4 cotton swabs, nail polish remover and 2 makeup sponges. I figured the makeup sponges was the same consistency of those black paint sponges, the only difference being the color and no handle.

I walked back out and by now my insane neighbor, Crazy Larry had just arrived home in his blue, “lost souls” van. Hopefully if he wasn’t busy walking his cat, he would come over to impart his conspiracy theories around the government, meanwhile I could stick the paint brush in his hand and he could just fix this mess for me. Of coarse, Larry never came over.

I am surrounded by nosy yet expert “do it yourselfers” so surely A. someone was watching this train wreck and B. they would feel bad for me and help me out. That help never came.

I picked up 1 of the 4 swabs and dabbed it in the nail polish remover. I gingerly pressed it on to the first paint splat on the 3 and voila, it came off! I got a little too carried away and took off just a smidge of the black. Like a Monet, you really can’t see how bad I screwed up this whole paint thing unless you look real close.

Next I took my makeup sponge, dipped it in the paint and began to blot the mailbox thingy like I was a Clinique makeup artist with a complete plan. The only plan here was to announce “I saw this on Pinterest”, should I be questioned on my choice of tools. Really, you can do anything strange these days and as long as you say the 5 magic words, “I saw this on Pinterest”, your still “in the club”. I’m not a big fan of Pinterest. I have like 6 boards and my last one is like a year old. It serves it’s purpose but I’m not one of those obnoxious women where every other sentence is, “I found this on Pinterest”.

My mailbox looks better but not great. So to my friends and future friends I ask you this, do you have any tips for this Karate Kid about painting the mailbox thing?