Are you going to paint today?

«Are you going to paint today?»

That is the question I have heard every day after work and weekends since the month of May. In fact, that sentence has been uttered out loud so many times that the two year old have started to copy it.

“Are you going to paint today?”

“Are you going to paint today daddy?”

I often change the answer up a little bit – from a direct “yes” to a more mellow “that’s the plan” or even the more rebellious “maybe…”

She means the house. The whole thing. Especially the newly built apartment side of it. The one we rent out to a young couple starting university this year. Apparently, someone in a store somewhere that carries a lot of paint have told her father it is crucial to paint the house two times. That is – on the new part – not counting the foundation that comes with the wood itself, and not the layer of paint I did last year. This, in all, means four layers of paint on the house. This is absolute FACT. No chance of thinking that maybe, sure, it’s a good plan, but maybe it’s also because the store wants to sell more paint. Nah…

“Are you going to paint today?”

“That’s the general idea…”

“We need those layers…two layers…two layers…two layers of paint.”

“Alright, good to know.”

In reality, I’m not painting the entire house twice. I have done one layer and her father did another on the new part. When I have spoken to him, we’re in agreement that we don’t need two layers on the old part of the house considering it’s been painted by need since 1969. This has not totally been understood or accepted by my girlfriend. She thinks two layers on everything. Even though I’ve told her. But I have to be careful. Slipping those kinds of reality bombs often end up in a bad way.

No wonder, two days ago, she said;

“Are you going to paint today?”

“No, not really…”

“But it needs two layers…”

I decided to drop a reality bomb;

“Not the old house, not the parts by our bedroom window and the end part by the garage. For example.”

“But my dad was told two layers. Two layers is good. We need to get this over with or we have to paint next year.”

“I think it’s under control…

“But but…”

Mind you, she haven’t touched a paintbrush herself, so by “we” she means me and her dad.

She doesn’t listen to me. Thats my experience on these matters, so I just refer her to her father if she got questions. It’s the dumbest and most embarrassing thing ever as 40-year olds to have to do. But, this is how she operates. Her father decides and he’s the king. Thankfully, he’s not a dictator. He’s quite nice and we usually come to good agreements. He is not the problem.

So, we’re not in agreement about those layers. But I can’t confront it or tell her that since I’m painting this goddamn house twice – that I decide how and when and how much. It will end like one of our covid-19 discussions. Like when I get embarrassed when she shows me alt-right articles on covid without understanding where she got it from and what type of horrible source that actually is to put her trust in. No no no, I know her better by now.

“Are you going paint today?”

“Well….we’ll see.”

“But two layers, we were told two layers.”

“Not on certain parts…”

“But…but”.

Insert further arguments here which will either end in some kind of fight, or I simply put up a white lie and say yes. Dress up, go out, and put some paint somewhere, and then spend 30 minutes looking at Instagram in the basement.

Thankfully her dad called her last night. I overheard. I was right there. He mentioned painting and the need to talk to me about what’s left to do and not.

I am sure she felt that thos was her time to go all guns blazing, and so she did:

“There’s only one layer of paint!” she tells him in slight desperation; “He [that is yours truly] only did one layer of paint!”

She looks at me in mid-sentence basically;

“You did one layer, right? One layer around the house?”

“Yep…”

“Yes!” she tells her dad; “he did one layer of paint!”

Like I haven’t been out all summer painting a huge house. Because I have. The house is huge. It’s a massive undertaking.

I hear her father replying to her on the phone;

“Well, we don’t need more than layer one on…”

He lists up all those places I told her about and she refused to listen me all focused on two layers. Two layers. Two layers, we were told two layers, my dad wants two layers, the store said two layers. Two layers.

You would assume that a 41 year old would stand tall and tell her father like she’s telling me about those layers of white paint and that it needs to be done because she wants it to be done.

But I know this story by now.

She accepts it with a nod and a simple….

“Okay.”

But she manages to cling to what’s left of her arsenal of painting arguments. The garage. The garage needs two layers. Surely the garage needs two layers?!

Her dad doesn’t really take a stand on it on the phone.

She takes it as a win.

The garage needs two layers, yes?

Are you going to paint today?

Two can play tactics, so either I’ll be talking to her dad about the garage and we both agree to skip it – or he’ll do it himself.

I’m not fucking touching another paintbrush this year.

She refuse to get vaccinated

For the third or fourth time she said no to get the covid-19 vaccine, and for the same amount of times we ended up in several hours long discussion about it. This time though, I wasn’t prepared as I thought that several discussions with her father had decided upon the fact that she trusted his advice and would take the vaccine. She had changed her mind, again.

Her father’s wife, her stepmom, asked me only a few days ago if she would take the vaccine. “It depends who she talks to last,” I replied – thinking about the date of vaccination. She has a tendency to go with or take up the opinion of the last advice given by people she talks to, and often from those she trusts the most – people I call “the authoritarians”. Her father is the sole number one of these few people. I thought he had talked her into this by now, and that she was convinced it was the only right thing to do. Sadly, a nurse at work (whom I would strip of any qualifications if I could) talked her back to saying no.

Yesterday, with me thinking she was convinced, I offered her to join my mother as her 2^nd shot was on the same date as her first. When she told me she didn’t want to take it, I was – like I said – unprepared. I also forgot that she had slept only four hours during the daytime for two or three days straight from nightshift working. I know by experience that I need to choose my words very, very carefully when she’s in a state like that. But I forgot. I simply forgot.

When she told me she wasn’t taking the vaccine, I got extremely disappointed and mad. And I told her. I told her I was embarrassed by her choosing to stay in the 10% crowd in this country. Those who say no. I said it was shameful. From then on, it was a downhill race.

Her daughter had a friend sleeping over, so we mostly kept it low in volume. I tried to get out of the discussion several times, but she kept coming back to it. My second mistake. I usually call this method of hers as “going fishing” as she is trying her best to find confrontational subjects or using rhetorics that is aiming to provoke me. She is simply trying to wind me up and with me being off-guard, she succeeded. Vaccination gets me wind up. And she always does this when she’s in a bade mental or physical state.

“I can think for myself” was one of her arguments, and I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help myself. She is constantly being influenced by others, more than anyone else I know. Problem being, she is not aware of this issue herself which makes it difficult. Like I said, it depends who she talks to last. That is the opinion she will adopt.

I asked her what “herd immunity” meant, and she responded it was when everyone did the same thing – like sheep. She tried once more to explain what herd immunity meant, and it was clear to me she didn’t know what it was. She kept referring me to an article she had read, and at first I didn’t listen. I was just shocked that she was attacking me and my knowledge about the subject when she didn’t even understand the basics.

At midnight she went to the bathroom to get ready for bed, and I followed. She started it up again once more when we were both in there, this time attacking me for saying it felt embarrassing and a shame in front of the kids. Apperantly this was over the line He daughter got involved at some point in the discussion saying her mother overreacted. In her world, that means I have influenced her daughter into taking my stand. Nonsense. Several times I had to deny that I had called her an idiot, to which I had not – honestly. But I guess that’s what she heard in her head when I said it was embarressing she didn’t want the vaccine. It is embaressing to ME. Its an emotion that I have. Not her. It’s not a characterization of her.

She then said no one knew what was in the vaccine itself. Today, it took me 15 seconds to find the ingredients. I tried to explain how herd immunity worked once again, and that every society needs to take this vaccine to stop further spread. I continued on that it is our duty to get vaccinated to protect others and create herd immunity. No prevail.

She gave off a constant stream of conspiracy ideas and thoughts about the vaccine and once again mentioned an article. I finally gave in and told her to show me. She showed me the article – a piece written for a conservative, conspiratorial bordering website. “I can’t go to this website at work, are you kidding me!” I told her. She had no idea what type of website it was. After 45 minutes of this nonsense, I gave up and desperately tried to stop her talking any longer. That was not until she had told me that she considered my best friend for dumb and that she had no sexual desire for the next two weeks. She also got entangled into a reflection about what friends are, and that since I didn’t support her or stood by her choice to say no to a vaccine, I wasn’t a friend. I tried telling her that my honest and direct answer to her vaccine refusal actually WAS being a friend, because I was being honest instead of just bending like a straw in the wind. I don’t think she understood.

It looks to me like there’s been too many people in her life just accepting whatever she does or thinks without telling her the truth; that she’s being foolish. She can’t handle being spoken to and corrected. And with me being first, this is a brave new world.

I told her she sounded like those Facebook comment sections that I refused to read. She smelled where I was going with it (let’s accept the fact that Facbook comment sections are filled with absolute idiots) and so I managed to save it by saying I had no time to read them – not because they were dumb. Good save by me though.

By 01:00 hours, we suddenly heard noises from the hallway and lo and behold, her daughter and her friend had been listening in on our conversation for God knows how long. It couldn’t turn out much worse. If that wasn’t embaressing….

With her chasing down the two kids and telling them it was rude to listen in on private conversation, I finally saw a chance to simply go to bed. I heard her daugter saying it was embaressing to listen (to her I assume) before I tried to fall asleep. It took me a while. I had been so good for so long in not biting, but this time I was caught off guard, and the fish has to bite some time.

Take the fucking vaccine you morons.