I’ve been making Valentine’s Day cakes all day. And as usual, I’m covered with icing, whip topping and ice cream. I’m not sure why I can stay clean some days and a complete mess the next. One reason is, I’m always wiping my hands on my shirt. That doesn’t help.  LOL.

I’d like to say this is a new development in my life, but the truth is, I have a knack for getting stuff all over my clothes. What seems like a lifetime ago, when I was Department Head of the Paint Department, I was always covered in paint. Paint, tint and dust. Typically a combination of all three. I’d never wipe my hands on my apron, but for some reason I preferred to wipe under my apron??? Yep, all down the sides of my pants. Finger prints of all colors.

I remember one day I was filling the tint machine and reached up to grab the tin of magenta. I reached up and started to pull it down, and then it all poured down my arm and back. Yep, someone had opened it and put it back up there. Only in my world would I have been the one that it spilled down. Boy was it cold.

Another day, the closers forgot to take the trash out. I’m talking to one of my team, and fling the bag over my back to take out. As we are talking, I felt that same cold sensation down my back leg. Only this time, it was yellow tint leaking out the bag.  All you can do is laugh.

My final memory of this time period was the right of passage that each new member in a paint department goes through. The spilling of your first can of paint. My entire department basically was new and one by one they each dropped their can and a huge paint puddle pool was born. However, there were three of us who refused to go down. We went months without our initiation into the club.

Then one fateful day, lady luck turned on us. Two of us were mixing paint when we heard the third of our trio yell out and a big boom. We turn the corner only to see a puddle forming. We knew we were down to two as Charles soon joined the ranks of the spillers. As Greg and I mixed paint we gave him grief. Now this was in the days of the old mixers where you had little arms that flapped down to hold the can in and you yanked them out. Not 5 minutes after the spill, I hear another grumbling under the breath as I noticed that Greg now has knocked over one of the cans he was putting tint into. Then there was one.

Yep, I was the lone hold out. As two of my compadres cleaned up their paint messes, I was laughing my butt off. I took over the paint mixing for Greg as he cleaned up his new mess and when I lifted up one of his cans to put it in the paint mixer. I saw it in slow motion….. The lid was never hammered on and paint gushed out the can, all down the front of my shirt and apron.

In a matter of 10 – 15 minutes, the three of us went down. We were officially welcomed by the paint gods into their world.

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Years later, I’m still capable of wearing a mess on my clothes, but I am slowly turning over my crown to my my protege. I have a young woman that works for me that puts me to shame. I look like the Orbit Gum lady compared to her. She starts off all clean and by the end of the night she is wearing pretty much all 31 flavors. Someday I’ll have to share more about her messiness. Trust me, it’s worth a post all on it’s own.

 

~~~till we laugh again~~