White isn't white after all...

So, as you know, we're in the process of moving, and in doing so are completing the mundane, but necessary tasks.

As my dutiful wife cleaned the master bathroom (thank God for her! I do a terrible job!), I caulked around the toilet and along the baseboards. Thanks to our (ok, mostly my wife's) efforts, it looks a million times better.

I next removed pictures from the basement walls and spackled the holes left by their vacancy. Painting was another chore of the day, and it's in the basement where I started the "touching up" here and there. After painting over the freshly spackled walls, I got to the areas where Baron's ball and other toys had come crashing down the stairs and into the wall at their base...MY GOD DOG! I repainted at least TWENTY spots at the bottom of the stairs alone. Pant...Pant...Pant, oh, and yeah, the dogs (We're dog sitting for the mother in law, and YES, Max did puke today, while my wife and I attempted to enjoy a beer on the deck, yup, barfed right between the two of us...had to move to the patio...smell) want to come inside, but not while I'm painting. A schnauzer who's beard and muzzle are painted white really isn't a very clean or a very charming schnauzer.

So, I clean my brush so I can touch up the stairwell with another color. The basement's tan and it's stairwell is white...so I thought. Grabbing a pail of "white" paint and my freshly cleaned brush, I head back downstairs to paint the stairway. It's here that I touch up easily over ONE HUNDRED spots of pink, yellow, blue and red, where again, Baron's ball or other toys has scraped the wall and left a mark.

I finish the stairwell, glance at the dogs who are still peering in the doorway near the deck, and head to the main hall of the house, where, you guessed it, I'll be touching up Baron blemishes. By a large margin, the hallway has suffered the worst. It takes me over an hour to "touch up" the hall way and five door jambs. By this time, I'm drawing a crowd, as my wife is closely observing my work, as are the two dogs she's just let in the house.

Then she says it.

"Honey, are you sure this paint is the same color as the original paint?" "It looks brighter and shinier."

"Babe, it's white paint. Of course I'm sure, and even if there's a slight variation, it'll blend with the surrounding paint. Let's let it dry and see how it looks."

****

"The paint's dry, and sorry to tell you, but it's definitely different...look at it glimmer!"

"That's enough." "Let me see it." "Motherfucker!"

"You gotta repaint this hallway and the stairway, too." "I can see the difference now, just wait until we put the 100 watt bulbs in the light fixtures."

As I glaze down both the hall and the stairway, oh yeah, it's different alright. Bespeckled and brilliant...the white paint is "extra white" AND shiny AND glittery.

So, I guess white isn't white after all...