Sal the Bulgarian Painter
I haven't written much about the place where I work, but today I decided it warrants a mention. It is a high tech agency that designs websites-the websites that have hundreds of pages for companies who sell hundreds of products. Yep, someone designs those sites. The company's speciality is travel sites, or visitor and convention bureaus, or the Official Website for the City of [insert city name] or the County of [insert county name.]
One of the owners decided it was time to upgrade the office, so there has been a lot of re-decorating going on. He has put in new furniture, a big screen TV, and some hanging lamps that are, I am very sorry to report, orange and don't really match. But, he didn't ask for my decorating advice, so I have kept that to myself.
My boss hired Sal the Bulgarian to paint the office walls. The walls range in color from pale gray to three different shades of aqua-blue to a color that can only be described as, well, um... let me put it this way: If I were writing a novel about vampires, I would describe the color as being the same as dried blood. It is a maroony-browny-icky color. And there are no less than three walls in this maze that have been festooned with this disgusting color.
I have to admit, however, that the three shades of blue are very nice and they match the carpet.
Anywho....
Sal, the painter who told me he was from Bulgaria, worked diligently for two days.
Aside: I had to look up Bulgaria to see if it even still existed and I discovered that it does and it is a state in Southeastern Europe, that borders five other countries; Romania to the north (mostly along the Danube), Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south. The Black Sea defines the extent of the country to the east.
He was cleaning up his mess and set a paint can on the floor without the lid being hammered down tightly. My boss was hanging pictures on the walls in the same general vicinity and kicked over the bucket of paint. From my desk, I didn't see the actual event, but I heard my boss wail, "OHMYGOD! It's a DISASTER!" I stepped around the corner and, sure enough, there was a huge spreading stain of paint. Which color you may ask? The blood colored one, of course.
Sal steps into action and begins the clean-up process with my boss assisting. They got up most of the liquid paint and was left with a huge blood colored stain that made the office look like an episode of CSI. Then, Sal tells Boss, "You just need to put lots of water on and then clean it up, over and over until the stain is gone." Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
This process worked. The more water they put on the stain, the more paint come up out of the carpet. Boss got the brilliant idea of using the vacuum cleaner to pull more water out of the carpet faster.
Now, dear readers, this would have been a brilliant solution had the vacuum been a shopvac instead of an upright Kirby. And because we live on a planet where gravity works-a discovery I make every morning as soon as I try to get out of bed-and applying the principle of what goes up must come down... well, long story short, the blood-colored paint began running out of the vacuum cleaner, making it look like it suffered a fatal wound. And the consequence is, there was ANOTHER CSI stain to clean up.
Boss: OHMYGOD! It's a DISASTER!
Boss runs with the vacuum and places it outside of the front door (can you put your eye out doing that, as in no running with scissors?) where it continued to bleed all over the concrete walkway. Boss and Sal pour more water on the new stain and sop it up with paper towels... of which we have about twenty rolls stashed in the storage room... or we did before the DIASTER.
Who says, there is no excitement in the work place?
Anyway, Sal the Bulgarian was so upset by the paint DISASTER that he left without taking his check with him. So, I am sure we will see Sal the Bulgarian, again.
I will, of course, update you as to the condition of the carpet when I get to work. If the red stain is still availalble, I may be tempted to put an outline of a body on the carpet.
At any rate, you may ask, what was my role in all of this? Mostly standing in the corner and trying not to laugh out loud.
Boss: Kay Four? Were you sniggering?
Me: Me? No! Never!
Boss: I think I heard you giggling, at the very least.
Me: Giggling during a DISASTER? That would be cruel. Kind of like laughing at a car wreck.
Boss: Exactly. I heard you.
Me: (giggling behind my hand) No, you didn't.
Boss: Yes, I did. You have tears running down your face you are laughing so hard.
Me: It's allergies. I swear.
Update (the next morning):
Today, the red paint is only just visible on the carpet, however, outside where boss put the bleeding vacuum cleaner is a huge red spot right by the front door. And it really does look like blood on the concrete. Can you say eeeewwwww? And there was a CSI team of investigators out there when I arrived for work.
Investigator 1 (played by David Caruso): It looks like blood.
Investigator 2 (played by Khandi Alexander): We'll have to take it to the lab to be certain.
David: Do you know anything about this?
Me: Yes, I do.
David: You'll have to come to the station so we can talk to you.
Me: We can talk right here. It was a vacuum cleaner death.
David: You mean the vic was killed with a vacuum cleaner?
Me: No. I mean the vic was a vacuum cleaner. You can find the mortal remains in the dumpster by the back stairs.
Investigator 3 (played by Adam Rodriguez): I'll go take a look.
David: Young lady, vacuum cleaners don't bleed. We are not idiots.
Me: I know that. It isn't really blood, you know.
Khandi: We'll determine what it is when we get this sample back to the lab.
Me: I can tell you what it is. It is watered down paint.
David: Really. How did watered down paint get into the vacuum cleaner?
Me: Well, you see, there was this guy from Bulgaria named Sal...
David: Is he the vic?
Me: Oh, brother.
David: This Bulgarian is your brother?
Me: It's going to be a long morning, I can tell.
One of the owners decided it was time to upgrade the office, so there has been a lot of re-decorating going on. He has put in new furniture, a big screen TV, and some hanging lamps that are, I am very sorry to report, orange and don't really match. But, he didn't ask for my decorating advice, so I have kept that to myself.
My boss hired Sal the Bulgarian to paint the office walls. The walls range in color from pale gray to three different shades of aqua-blue to a color that can only be described as, well, um... let me put it this way: If I were writing a novel about vampires, I would describe the color as being the same as dried blood. It is a maroony-browny-icky color. And there are no less than three walls in this maze that have been festooned with this disgusting color.
I have to admit, however, that the three shades of blue are very nice and they match the carpet.
Anywho....
Sal, the painter who told me he was from Bulgaria, worked diligently for two days.
Aside: I had to look up Bulgaria to see if it even still existed and I discovered that it does and it is a state in Southeastern Europe, that borders five other countries; Romania to the north (mostly along the Danube), Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south. The Black Sea defines the extent of the country to the east.
He was cleaning up his mess and set a paint can on the floor without the lid being hammered down tightly. My boss was hanging pictures on the walls in the same general vicinity and kicked over the bucket of paint. From my desk, I didn't see the actual event, but I heard my boss wail, "OHMYGOD! It's a DISASTER!" I stepped around the corner and, sure enough, there was a huge spreading stain of paint. Which color you may ask? The blood colored one, of course.
Sal steps into action and begins the clean-up process with my boss assisting. They got up most of the liquid paint and was left with a huge blood colored stain that made the office look like an episode of CSI. Then, Sal tells Boss, "You just need to put lots of water on and then clean it up, over and over until the stain is gone." Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
This process worked. The more water they put on the stain, the more paint come up out of the carpet. Boss got the brilliant idea of using the vacuum cleaner to pull more water out of the carpet faster.
Now, dear readers, this would have been a brilliant solution had the vacuum been a shopvac instead of an upright Kirby. And because we live on a planet where gravity works-a discovery I make every morning as soon as I try to get out of bed-and applying the principle of what goes up must come down... well, long story short, the blood-colored paint began running out of the vacuum cleaner, making it look like it suffered a fatal wound. And the consequence is, there was ANOTHER CSI stain to clean up.
Boss: OHMYGOD! It's a DISASTER!
Boss runs with the vacuum and places it outside of the front door (can you put your eye out doing that, as in no running with scissors?) where it continued to bleed all over the concrete walkway. Boss and Sal pour more water on the new stain and sop it up with paper towels... of which we have about twenty rolls stashed in the storage room... or we did before the DIASTER.
Who says, there is no excitement in the work place?
Anyway, Sal the Bulgarian was so upset by the paint DISASTER that he left without taking his check with him. So, I am sure we will see Sal the Bulgarian, again.
I will, of course, update you as to the condition of the carpet when I get to work. If the red stain is still availalble, I may be tempted to put an outline of a body on the carpet.
At any rate, you may ask, what was my role in all of this? Mostly standing in the corner and trying not to laugh out loud.
Boss: Kay Four? Were you sniggering?
Me: Me? No! Never!
Boss: I think I heard you giggling, at the very least.
Me: Giggling during a DISASTER? That would be cruel. Kind of like laughing at a car wreck.
Boss: Exactly. I heard you.
Me: (giggling behind my hand) No, you didn't.
Boss: Yes, I did. You have tears running down your face you are laughing so hard.
Me: It's allergies. I swear.
Update (the next morning):
Today, the red paint is only just visible on the carpet, however, outside where boss put the bleeding vacuum cleaner is a huge red spot right by the front door. And it really does look like blood on the concrete. Can you say eeeewwwww? And there was a CSI team of investigators out there when I arrived for work.
Investigator 1 (played by David Caruso): It looks like blood.
Investigator 2 (played by Khandi Alexander): We'll have to take it to the lab to be certain.
David: Do you know anything about this?
Me: Yes, I do.
David: You'll have to come to the station so we can talk to you.
Me: We can talk right here. It was a vacuum cleaner death.
David: You mean the vic was killed with a vacuum cleaner?
Me: No. I mean the vic was a vacuum cleaner. You can find the mortal remains in the dumpster by the back stairs.
Investigator 3 (played by Adam Rodriguez): I'll go take a look.
David: Young lady, vacuum cleaners don't bleed. We are not idiots.
Me: I know that. It isn't really blood, you know.
Khandi: We'll determine what it is when we get this sample back to the lab.
Me: I can tell you what it is. It is watered down paint.
David: Really. How did watered down paint get into the vacuum cleaner?
Me: Well, you see, there was this guy from Bulgaria named Sal...
David: Is he the vic?
Me: Oh, brother.
David: This Bulgarian is your brother?
Me: It's going to be a long morning, I can tell.
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