A Singaporean In Australia

This is an era of outsourcing, the golden age of don't-do-it-yourself, where maids bath your kids (and sometimes your husbands) more than you. So who paints a house these days?

To cost save, I do.

"I'll rather leave it to others and spend the time making more money elsewhere," go the same voices. I suspect it has a bit to do with motivational gurus. Those fucktards share stories like Bill Gates will actually lose more by picking up a $50 note as he walks to his office because he makes more than $50 in 2 seconds, the time he'll need to spend to pick up that note. But trust me, Bill Gates will pick that fucking note up nonetheless AND make whatever money he does in 2 seconds. He will not even mind spending another 2 seconds to look around to check if no one is looking so that motivational gurus will continue to preach donky opportunity cost concepts.

So paint I shall. Instead of paying someone else $3-4k to do the job, I will do it for $300-400 and end up with painting equipment, better skills and bitter mistakes learnt from the job to do it for others for $2.8k. I don't see why not. Besides, it is not as if I can make $4k elsewhere in the meantime. I won't even make $40 if I blog until I have blisters in that time frame. I don't expect my 5 reader to donate $500 each to me either. Chances are they are also pissed poor peasants, like me. Jen chose a colour called Eggshell Cream. Though it probably wasn't the favourite color I would put on walls, I didn't have a problem with it.

My friends had comments about me painting the place myself. Judy said, "We painted out HDB flat ourselves, already siong enough." Little did she know, the place I was handling wasn't really much bigger than a 5-room HDB flat. The only problem was, I had to paint the place alone. Sometimes when I ran out of tunes in my mind to whistle, I'd wonder if I fell or cut myself, how long would they take to find me. Would I smell bad by then? Things like that. Thusara also told me if he was a POW, all they need to do is to make him paint a house, he'll have confessed everything. You know, I'm glad some of them recognised the hard work I was undertaking, considering the intensity due to the time constraints set. Considering I was doing it all alone, after Knight of Brook tragically got his eye fucked by my paint in the earlier days.

Before long, I told Jen the daily commuting between houses were killing my productivity. So I began to stay overnight at the hollow shell to extend my hours. There was hot water bath so I couldn't complain. I didn't even mind walking on dusty concrete floors after bath. I would be dirty from head down by dawn anyway. What was a little dusty feet. The mozzies lurking around were delighted and why wouldn't they? They hadn't have fresh blood for eternity, judging by the manner they swarmed. To be honest, I was so tired I didn't even mind them taking my blood. I should have drained some blood and left it in a container nearby for their buffet spread to exchange for a good night's sleep. If drawing blood wasn't enough, they tried taunting me by buzzing around my ears. That - was an act of war. And I would never let them get away with it.

By morning, the room smelt like a temple. Some dead smacked remains of mozzies left around the floor. I washed up and continued my work, pleased with the manner the morning sunlight penetrated the house just the way I envisaged it. Savvy Steve might not appreciate the effort I put in to get him an amazing dainty house, but I congratulated myself for getting things right.

Jen would bring along the kids to visit me in late morning. Besides breakfast, what I looked forward to was seeing the kids. However, it wasn't easy to convince Albany that I had to concentrate on my work. Else, that kind of living arrangement would have to continue. By the third day, Jen summoned me back home angrily, because she couldn't cope with the two kids. I was slightly disappointed. I expended everything I could muster for the project and could hardly offer anything more at home. Still, family first - even before my own life.

My saving grace was that without any flooring, I need not worry much about spilling paint to the floor. So I was able to roll more liberally than usual. The amount of "cutting in" I had to do was tremendous. 1 sealing coat, 2 coats of paint. I had to cut the perimeter of the walls thrice. Up the ladder, down the ladder. I realised I was losing weight fast over the weeks. I couldn't find a single muscle that wasn't aching whenever I woke.

The freehand "cutting in" tutorials I watched online paid dividends. It saved me a lot of time to paint edges without the use of applying tape - something I really hate doing. The initial attempts were shaky and slow but as time went go, I became faster and faster as my body got accustomed to the repeated moves. See some examples of my freehand "cutting in."