The Oxymoron Paint Company...morons love them!

As you are walking down the street to your friend Ed's, you are anxious to see how the painting is going on the outside of his house. He had marveled last summer over the stunning job that those guys from Perennial Painters had done on your house; so you gave him one of their cards and sang their praises as you and he quaffed down a couple cold ones in your back yard.

But Ed had subsequently called you complaining of the Perennial's price tag; he decided to go with a cheaper alternative, College Pros. With the money we save by using them, Ed bragged, he and his wife were going to go to the city for the weekend...watch a play, fine dining, etc.

He told you that when the College Pro guy showed up at his house for the bid, he arrived in a new white van, he was clean-shaven and his white shirt and pants were spotless. Within minutes, Ed had a bid in his hand, and the price was almost too good to be true. When Ed asked the guy why he didn't walk around the house, the College Pro fellow proudly stated that, "he didn't really have to because he knew that all Colonial houses were the same."

Ed told you that he enthusiastically signed on the dotted line, gave the guy a sizable check for the deposit, and scheduled the job for the following June.

And now, a year later, you are on your way to Ed's house wondering if maybe you could have gone cheaper on your own house painting, as well. But you had really enjoyed the company of the respectful, and friendly Perennial crew, and the house turned out great. You are also wondering why Ed called you at 7 in the evening to ask if you would help him move a dresser.

Ed is leaning against a front porch post clutching his cell phone as if he is thinking about winging it across the street. His face is flushed, and his trademark, engaging smile is absent; very absent.

The siding on Ed's house is now a luminous, bright green; the kind of green you might find on the logo for a kids' trampoline park. " I thought you guys were going for an earth tone green for the siding," you asked. The red on Ed's cheeks brightened and he closed his eyes. "That is one of the reasons that I was yelling over the phone at that clown of a manager from College Pros", he huffed.The manager told Ed that one of the guys had mistakenly picked up Cajun Green instead of Carter Green.

Then Ed proceeded to describe his interactions with the paint crew that day which would, undoubtedly, have delighted the writers for Saturday NIght Live. When Ed opened the garage door to leave for work that morning, he was blocked by a rusty, Chevy pickup and equipment thrown haphazardly across the driveway.

The first "painter" that he encountered was a bare-footed, bare-chested version of Grizzly Adams who was wearing pajama bottoms that had a motif on them which matched the wallpaper in his son's room - Iron Man. When Ed asked him to move the truck, he learned that the hairy, morbidly obese fellow had lost his license a week ago when he was arrested for his third DUI. Thankfully, Grizzly's skin-headed buddy, who sported an enormous ring through his nose, backed the truck onto the street. As Ed was cautiously backing down the driveway. Grizzly tapped on his window to ask him to keep the doors of the house unlocked. They would need the doors open to paint them, he explained; and there was a good possibility that he may have to go inside to "take a dump".

As he sped away down the street, now late for work, Ed heard the skin-head scream, "How do you start the f__king sprayer?!"

At mid-morning, Ed got a call from his wife who worked across town. Sharon, the neighbor three houses down, had called her to complain about the screechingly loud music emanating from Ed's property which was causing their dog to howl incessantly. As Ed pulled into the driveway, his car shook along with the speakers that were sitting in the middle of the front yard. He strained to look at the house that was now coated in the hideous green. Finally, he found the two "painters" sitting at the picnic table at the edge of the back yard. As he approached them, Ed watched two unmistakable, Budweiser cans disappear beneath the table.

That green was probably just a primer, Grizzly guessed; and as for the over spray all over the window glass, they would somehow clean that off when the job was done. Not to worry. When Ed ran into the house to grab a bottle of water before returning to work, he gagged from a stench that reminded him of a dead animal.

When he arrived back home that evening, Ed saw that the truck was gone, empty paint cans and ladders were strewn around the property, and the front door was wide open. He thought he saw a chipmunk darting inside. Good thing the wife wasn't home, yet.

The stench in the house lingered, and Ed pummeled a bone in his hand trying to open the living room windows which were now painted shut. The locks in the front door handles no longer worked; "the idiots didn't know how to put them back on after painting the door", he muttered to himself.

And so now, after that dizzying tirade, Ed meekly apologizes to you. He needs you now to help move a chest over to block the front door for the night; and to give him the number, again, of those Perennial Painters.

As you walked past Ed's wife, who was softly crying as she desperately tried to scrub green paint off of her prize rose plants, it dawned on you that Ed had, unfortunately, hired the ultimate oxymoron...College Pros!