“Serving overseas as a small-town boy from America is intense, stressful and humorous! Enjoy a light-hearted story with me from our last 20 years overseas!”
—Matt
Cold Soup House
Do you have a dreaded home project? I just spent an hour at our overseas, neighborhood paint store buying another paint brush and a new bucket of wall paint, and also shaking the ceiling paint that was left over and still good. I go to a professional painter store and buy their top-of-the-line stuff, which is only the quality of products you’d buy at a dollar store in America.
It has been up to a “comfortable, sweaty-hot” 84F degrees in our overseas apartment this last week. There is no basement to retreat to, as I did as a kid, when growing up in the era before air conditioning in Indiana. In the winter the apartment gets to a “comfortable, damp-cold” in the low 60Fs. Yes, we don’t have heat, nor air conditioning in our overseas, city apartment and this contributes to the mold that quickly grows and smells on our walls and ceilings. I reluctantly try to repaint one part of the apartment each summer, after much urging and coaxing on my wife’s part.
She has done her motivating job, and I will begin the painting job today with the indoor temps in the low 80Fs. I actually like painting – taking paint from a bucket, to the brush or roller, and then applying it to the wall. What gets me so grumpy is the moving and covering of the furniture and wall decorations, and then uncovering it and moving it all back when completed. I easily spend three times as much energy prepping and cleaning up, as I do actually just painting.
When I finish the job my shoulders and neck will ache for days from the reaching around and maneuvering in awkward positions. Our overseas apartment is around 1100ft square (very large for over here), and we have a long, skinny hallway snaking along that is 50 feet long, only 3 feet 3 inches wide, and is over 9 feet tall.
The friendly paint store man said we call long, skinny, city apartments, “cold soup houses,” as your food is cold by the time it gets from the kitchen to the dining room at the other end. Cold soup sounds pretty good on this hot day!
Something similar ever happen to you. Contact me and let me hear your story!
mattsmishaps@gmail.com Matt’s Mishaps, PO BOX 114, Grabill, IN 46741
