"Whoa...Is It Supposed To Splatter?"

I told you this post would be coming! I received emails and text messages about how much our "building with chicks" video made you cringe. We were slow and sloppy and a little bit drunk and ohlordinheaven if you ever had to build something with us you'd absolutely die.

But you haven't even seen the whole thing yet. At one point there were only two of us with a can of paint!

Looking back on this, she appears to be scared. And so should you. Two girls with a can of paint is an epic shit-show.

Beth recently moved into her new apartment with her cousin, Sarah. Now, I've seen and lived in my share of craptastic apartments. I once lived with a friend who was responsible for breaking the back of the toilet cover into a billion pieces and we just let it sit there, resting precariously on the back of that toilet for the remainder of our lease. All eight months. Every time I sat down it was just waiting to release one of it's many jagged, ceramic hunks of death to spear me in the back when I reached for the TP.

That same apartment, by the way, had one wall made entirely of glass. Do you know what one wall made of glass in Michigan is like from November to March? IT'S NOT AS AWESOME AS WE ORIGINALLY THOUGHT IT WOULD BE.

I've also lived in an 11 x 15 ft room with one other girl, a tiny fridge and a television for eight months. And all of these places do not compare to how awful Beth's new apartment is.

Even she'll admit it. You can't control the heat on your own. You can look right into the front window and see directly to the bathroom (heaven forbid you should want to pee with the door open like I do, to listen to the television in the other room). It's virtually set up like a hotel room without the fancy wall art. The people next door hold championship wrestling matches in their kitchen, or at least, it sounds like it as we stood in her dining room one day. I looked up and without saying a word Beth nodded sadly, "Yeah...my neighbors run a lot. We hear it." And that was all that could really be said.

So it was no surprise that my dear, sweet, best friend couldn't take it anymore and insisted on decorating her bedroom for a small piece of "I don't hate this apartment as much as I thought I did." She ordered something like sixty seven pictures to make up one GIANT photo of David Bowie and decided that purple was her "signahchu colah" (Oh come ON you've seen Steel Magnolias, right?).

One bright and early...and LORDY do I mean early Saturday morning I picked her up. We looked at one another blankly for a few minutes in that vehicle because where does one buy paint anyway, when really we couldn't even THINK about the paint yet because both of our minds were screaming "Coffee...COFFEE....DON'T MAKE ME TURN THIS CAR AROUND" so it was actually quite convenient that when we put "Starbucks" into the GPS, it happened to share a parking lot with Home Depot. HOME DEPOT! They have paint right? And things for painting! Sure!

Coffee's in hand, we entered H.D. through the exit doors. We wandered around aimlessly with Beth's heels clicking away. Perhaps it's at this point I should mention that I went through great care that morning to find a sweatshirt that wasn't mine to paint in and my old jeans. I didn't even shower. When I arrived at Beth's, homegirl was in knee high boots and a jewel toned sweater, complete with jeweled necklace and I was like, "Really? That's your painting outfit?" and she was like, "DUH. It'll be fine." Fine. Moving on.

She literally sashays up to the paint display, plucks a purple color from the wall with such fierce determination and declares "THIS ONE" that I was sure she had been planning it for months. She saunters up to the paint counter, hands it to them with the confidence of an interior decorator who does this everyday and again, says, "THIS ONE" to the lady behind the counter.

"How much paint do you want?"
"Huh?"
"How much of this color would you like?"

This is when confident Beth becomes Beth-of-sheer-terror because she stares at the woman for maybe twenty seconds and then asks in a small voice, "Isn't it....just...like...a bucket'o'paint?"

INSERT HEAVY SIGHS HERE. We finally decide that a gallon is what we need, (Flat or Eggshell? FLAT OR EGGSHELL?!?!) and leave the woman to her mixing business. Beth is back in the game. She grabs painting kits from shelves like she does this everyday, swings her new 'bucket'o'paint' around with ease as we exit (through the entrance this time) and we head home. Where once we pull into the parking lot she gets out of the car, coffee in hand, and walks away completely unaware that we have $75.00 worth of paint and supplies in my backseat. Like we literally just went out for Starbucks and came back. Happy Saturday! Let's watch tv, shall we?

I think my favorite part of the whole day, and I mean my absolute FAVORITE PART was as I'm sitting on the floor, opening the paint can with a screwdriver. She's pretty quiet at this point and I look up to see a face just stricken with awe and she says to me in a hushed whisper, "Wow. You like, really know what you're doing, don't you?" Yes dear. I really do know how to open up this paint can. But whoo buddy should you see me with a bottle of wine. Anyway, I think my face says it all here, but perhaps there should be a caption underneath with a very sarcastic voice shouting, "Oh yes, Beth. Be prepared to be impressed."

Fast forward to us in her room. Turns out that Beth is an excellent fake at knowing what she's doing because she literally stared at me and a roll of blue tape for eight minutes like "NOW what happens?" when the room was finally prepped. She came back with a bathroom towel for the floor about halfway through the process rather than newspaper. She covered maybe 20% of one wall before she cried out in horror "ASHLEY...is it supposed to SPLATTER LIKE THIS?", holding the roller away from her body like it was a stick holding eight million boogers on the end.

But isn't she ADORABLE? I mean, you thought I was kidding about the boots and the sweater

and the necklace but whoooo boy was I not. OH BOY WAS I NOT KIDDING as she soon discovered that perhaps the necklace would have to go. The best place for it to go? On the floor, of course, right next to the can of paint and an unattended brush.

However, it was only a matter of minutes before Beth's super extreme arm strength came into play. While I busy edging, she dominated the entire wall in about twenty minutes. Girl can roller like it's her job. She even stood back and was all "I think it needs a second coat" where as when I'm stuck rollering, it's about forty minutes into half a wall that I'm wheezing, holding my biceps like an invisible demon is lighting them on fire and crying "WHERE IS ANDREW I CAN'T POSSIBLY DO THIS ON MY OWN ANYMORE."

Needless to say, we got her done. Beth is officially a painting pro and as far as I know, her new shelf and a billion David Bowie's are hanging up proudly on the purplest wall man-kind has ever seen. I'm so proud. And looking back on these photos, wish more than ever that I had chosen to shower that day. We'd like to extend a special thanks to The Swell Season Live Album and her cousin Sarah for cheering us on from the doorway with even more coffee in hand. I don't think either of us slept for two days after this excursion.