The Paint Job

Mom decorated my room in a clown theme when I was young. I had several paintings of clowns in the room and a small, circular throw rug with a clown face on it on the floor beside my bed. She had painted one wall of the room white and had used plates of various sizes to trace circles on the wall that she then painted in different colors to look like balloons.

I eventually outgrew the theme and Mom decided it was time to repaint the room. She took me to the paint department at Sears and told me I could pick out any color I wanted for my room! There was a massive rack filled with paint color chips and I could pick whatever caught my fancy.

Now, before any of my sisters jump in and start pontificating on my color selection; it is probably a good time for me to remind them and everyone else in the world that we were not aware that I was colorblind until I was in the seventh grade. Up until that point, everyone just assumed that I had terrible taste or was just too stupid to learn my colors.

This marvelous wall of colors proved to be rather confusing. You see, I never really believed (and still don't) that the 64 crayon box contained 64 unique colors. There are really only the eight colors they gave you in your kindergarten box of crayons and all of the rest of the colors were merely determined by how hard you pressed on one of the original eight colors. For example, pink is just taking the red crayon and very lightly pressing on it while true red is made by pressing really hard on the same crayon.

What most people don't realize (except for those of us who are truly enlightened "colorblind" people) is that they are ripping you off and giving you a giant box of the same colors repeated over and over again!

I quickly narrowed the options from this veritable wall of virtually identical colors to just a few options. It was while studying those options that my eye was drawn to the most beautiful color I had ever seen...

AZTEC GOLD!!!!!!!

It was stunning.

It was beautiful.

It was my choice!

I was thrilled as the clerk mixed my paint and gave it to me to take home to paint my room. Each glance at the little dab of paint on the lid to show the mixed color heightened my excitement for Mom and Dad to paint my room.

The whole room!

AZTEC GOLD!!!!!!

Mom and Dad painted over the three pale blue walls and the white wall with the circles of color painted on it with my beautiful new paint. My room was beautiful; and it was uniquely mine because I had chosen the color all by myself!

I still remember the smell of the fresh paint and the thrill of going to bed that night knowing that I would awaken to my Aztec Gold room in the morning. The morning just further validated my selection as I woke up to the warm embrace of its rich, golden hues.

The protests started almost immediately. All three of the girls claimed to hate it, but what did they know; they were just jealous that I had picked out my own paint color and it was so beautiful. I loved that color so much that I selected it again when it came time to pick a color for my room at our new house on Marie in Manchester. Unfortunately, Dad died before he had the chance to paint that room.

I still remember that paint and I still love it.

It was beautiful.