Thursday 25 April 2013

Public nuissance : DIY edition



Unsurprisingly, the majority of our outings have been for the sole purpose of interior shopping. Not the pleasant kind. The wood-cutting / wall-measuring / sacrificing-sleep kind. Last night’s trip was equally unpleasant as we (Mother) searched for paint. Heading towards Miguel Angel – or ‘Michelangelo’ as Mother insists on calling him – and he instantly looks terrified, his reflexes telling him to run to the nearest exist.

“HELLO AGAIN! Now, I need your help. Paint. I want more paint. Let me see your colour chart.”

Having spent three hours at home deciding on the exact colour, it did not deter Mother from spending another three hours with several colour charts in her hand, looking at four colours that honestly looked exactly the same. Poor Miguel was keeping his patience but losing his balance and found another, shorter co-worker to lean on. Oh dear. Mother roped shorter-man into her dilemma.
“Nope. I’m going to have to take this chart home. Can you give me one to take home please?”
Miguel then apologetically told Mother that in fact it is not like England and these colour charts are for in-store use only…
“WHAT?! What on earth do you mean?!  What do people do when they need to choose a wall colour?!”

“Well usually they just come and tell me they would like. ‘Pink’ for example, and we go from there. They just sort of… know what they want their walls look like.”

We are now stuck in some horrible limbo where Miguel is awaiting Mother’s sudden decision and Mother is waiting for Miguel to come up with a solution to this “ludicrous Spanish policy”.
Ten minutes later and the awful silence is broken by Miguel; “un momento, por favour” – and he trots to the front of the shop (I assumed he was just exhausted and planned a getaway but apparently not).
“He’s going to go and photocopy the chart isn’t he, darling?! Well, it won’t come out right unless it’s a Canon.”
He trots back. The next few minutes were hideous as Mother not only proposed the idea of going against store policy and ‘borrowing’ the chart but persisted until the store closed. Poor Miguel had no other option than to detach the heavily-secured colour chart just to get rid of us.

Mother got precisely what she wanted. Naturally.

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