NEVER COUNT ON A STRIPPER

I have been looking for a buffet for my dining room for about three years now. I finally found my bargain, a $30 antique that needed refinishing. I could do that! I would throw a coat of paint on it and call it good. That is until my husband had to open his big mouth.

“Nice piece Hon.” He said. All you have to do is sand it and paint it.

“Who asked you?” Is what I wanted to say but that is not the language recommended in the, ‘Happily Ever After’ marriage manual written by Prince Charming and Cinderella, so I simply smiled and said. “I just thought I’d paint it.”

He walked away without saying a word and left me packing my bags for the guilt trip he had just sent me on. I knew he was right and he knew I knew it. If I didn’t strip the thing I would end up painting it, hating it and sanding it in the end anyway.

I sighed and chased him up the stairs. “That’s too hard.” I complained. “You sand it. I’ll paint it.”

“No problem. We have some of that stripper stuff. I’ll do it Thursday.”

Thursday came, and of course Rick had other things come up. I was mad. It was the worst kind of mad too. The kind you can’t complain about. It’s the stuff that you never dream will happen, like when the polar ice caps, that have been frozen for two thousand years, suddenly drop a piece of glacier into your river and your house is suddenly under 20 feet of water.

Okay, it wasn’t exactly that bad, but why is it that his chiropractic table, after twenty five years of working perfectly, suddenly had to break down the day I want Rick to strip for me? Zeus himself couldn’t tell when Rick would have another free day ,so it was up to me.

I actually stood in the garage and wasted at least twenty minutes while I grabbed the can of paint, put it back to grab the stripper, then grab the paint again. I felt like the pendulum on a cuckoo clock. In the end I grabbed the stripper and slapped the gooey stuff on.

                                              
I knew that I better do the hardest part first or I might change my mind so I attacked the ornate legs. Fifteen minutes is a long time when you’re watching paint dry.

Can I just say, NEVER USE A STRIPPER! It is gooey and will not come out of the little cracks even when you use a toothbrush, paper towels or shish kabob skewers. Cussing doesn’t help either.

It will come off flat surfaces with a metal spatula, which they tell you not to use, and tons of elbow grease! I was hatin’ on my husband for several goopy sticky hours before I got the brilliant idea to borrow the neighbor’s sander.

New problem! Apparently I am the only person on earth who cannot use a sander. The paper would not stay in place. I stuck it on with duct tape and still couldn’t make it stick. I put the paper on the sander and placed it where I wanted it then pressed. It worked for about four seconds before falling off. Hundreds of four seconds later, I had the front and legs done. The rest was a breeze.

Rick came home moments after I finished. “Wow, Hon. Great job. I told you it was easy.”

His comment had the same effect as lighting a short fuse on a huge stick of dynamite.