Post-it Man

Just for a change, I thought I’d write something about someone else, much to the disgust of my narcissistic inner self. Since you’ve met my best friend, let’s talk about him. Of course, I’m in the story but only as the witness.

Through MBF I met another guy who ended up being a good friend, but in addition to being a friend he also gave me a fair bit of work, mostly carpentry, but occasionally electrical. This guy, let’s call him Don (it’s easier for me to remember because its his real name), had several buildings that he was always working on. One of which was this one.

The restaurant was called Sarah’s Down Home Cooking and specialised in grits, black-eyed peas, pumpkin pie, fried chicken and whatever roadkill she could get her hands on. He also owned the apartment building in the background.

Here’s a close up so you can see some of my handywork. Yep I did the redwood windows, which is really ironic because MBF’s passion was woodwork and he was asked to paint.

MBF did the occasional job for Don but always hated it because Don, being a Nebraskan would always make do with the minimum by way of tools and materials. He was one of the most generous people I’ve met but was mean in catering to his own needs, but that’s beside the point. One day he asked MBF to paint the inside if the restaurant, not because MBF was that good a painter but because he’d just bought a spray painting machine. So while MBF wasn’t too keen on working for Don, he was eager to try out his new toy.

Now Don, being the tightass that he was with equipment, decided that instead of forking over the cash for drop sheets, he’d just give MBF a bunch of newspapers. After spending the first half of the day with my soon to be wife laughing at the potential for disaster waiting to rain down on MBF, we went to see how he was going.
Even I hadn’t imagined the scene that would unfold as we step through the door.

To say it was surreal doesn’t do it justice, it was more like a scene out of a cartoon. MBF came over to say hello, I’d like to add impact by saying that anger and frustration were visible were in his eyes, but unfortunately I couldn’t actually see them through the ¼” thick layer of paint covering his glasses. The scene was mass chaos and looked like the printing press for the San Jose Mercury had suffered a complete mental breakdown and spewed out its contents from one end of the restaurant to the other.

Both my soon to be wife and I tried desperately to stifle a laugh (hysterics, actually), but to no avail, for before us was a new cartoon character called Post-it Man. Apart from his head (which was covered in paint) MBF was totally covered in newspaper like someone had gone crazy with a pack of giant post-its. Every step he took, the sticky overspray of the paint seemed to make him pick up another sheet so that by the time he reached us he was about ½” taller thanks to the equivalent of four full editions of the SJ Mercury stuck to the soles of his feet.