I hate painting. I swear I'd rather eat uncooked liver or scrub a latrine with a toothbrush before I pick up a rolling pin and start painting walls.
I can never get it right, and the amount of coats you have to put on never seems to end. I cry when I have to do it.
And the stress of it all starts at the paint store. Those Home Depot people act like their artists and I'm an idiot. Ok, maybe they're right.
I can never figure out how to match the color or even get the perfect new color that's in my mind. So I doth my workman's cap to the HP counter crew.
Redditor u/PhantomHeroine wanted all the people with color mixing skills to share some interesting tales by asking:
Home Depot paint mixers of Reddit, what is the weirdest thing you've had to color match?
I've brought in previous paint chips to try and match. That is the extent of my ability in paint coordination... crusty, old, dirty chips. What else is there to bring to the paint counter? Let's find out...
Meow Mix
cat turning GIFGiphy"My manager color matched a cat once. Mostly people just try to have you match splinters or things that have multiple color tones into just a "general vibe."
- TarotFox
In the Eyes
"I matched sharpies, microscopic flecks of paint people scraped off their walls, a woman's teal underwear, and more. Maybe the weirdest one was matching a guy's girlfriend's iris color. He wanted to paint something the color of her eyes, so he brought in a close-up photo of her. It was difficult because an iris isn't just one solid colour, but it was fun and he left happy with this kind of smoky blue."
- jojawhi
Crazy Brights?
"A guy came in once and wanted Asylum Yellow for his attic room. He said he saw it once and could we find it? Ended-up calling the 1-800 number and the woman said there was no color. After a while, she found it but it was Alyssum Yellow, named after a flower. He took a quart home, but I don't think he ever came back."
Andy Picks
"My mom took a can of Campbell's soups to Home Depot to get a color match for the red part. She then painted the kitchen, which was full of Campbell's soup tchotchkes, Campbell's soup red." -
"Andy Warhol would be proud."
Sexy Colors
babe dancing GIFGiphy"I used to work at a sex shop. We took a dancer thong into a place to color match the shade of pink for paint for the inside of our store. They ended up naming the color Booty Pants."
- jedgica
If only I wore underwear, I never would've thought to use it though. And my dog and cat are all black, so that would've been simple, had I been painting a cave. But people certainly get creative. I mean, soup for walls? Hungry much?
Not Pepsi?
"We did Coca Cola red, color matched a Coca Cola sign. (My husband only likes Coke, not Pepsi.) We didn't paint the walls red (walls are a soft yellow), but we painted the picture frames in the nearby room, and a clock frame, things like that. Stuff we can take off the walls if we decide to go a different route later, haha."
Never just one chip...
"Tostitos spinach dip. It was odd enough and with a good reward that I haven't forgotten it. A long time ago I worked for one of Home Depot's competitors and a someone came into ask if I'd be able to match the spinach dip that Tostitos was about to roll out. He wanted undercooked, perfectly cooked, and over cooked matched so that they could paint the inside of jars to show the manufacturing teams what each looked like as it all was made."
"The guy showed me a jar of the dip and we talked about how he'd have to remove all the spinach and red stuff (bell peppers, tomatoes?) chunks and have just the actual dip. He left but came in a few days later with just the dips smeared and dried on some little cards or something, then I spent a couple of hours working with him. To get the colors right. In the end he was happy."
"A day after that he came in just to bring me a couple of bags full of Lays (Tostitos parent company) and Tostitos with multiple jars of dips, including the not yet released spinach dip. He told me to share it all but I was in my mid 20s working full time and trying to finish my second college run at the time, so that free food was a godsend. I put those bags in my car instead of the break room and took it all home."
Dirty Lady
"Older lady comes in with a ziploc bag full of dirt. i figure she wants us to test it's pH or, something. Nope. She has a walkway, and when it rains some of the dirt from her flowerbed runs on to the walkway. she wants to paint the walk way the same color as the dirt so it isn't as noticeable."
"I try to talk her in to using landscape ties or something to prevent the dirt from getting on the the concrete in the first place. Nope, just wants to paint it. Ok. So i asked her if she wanted the paint to match the color of the dirt when it was wet or dry. Blew her mind."
Manual Labor
Ned Beatty Art GIFGiphy"Oh, now that's long ago... I used to be very good at manually matching colors (no machines in those days). There was the standard bits of paper and cloth."
"One day someone walks in covered in dried paint, and asks me to match the color on their arm. Someone has spilled the paint all over him and they needed more, but had lost the color identification code somehow. He stood around patiently for an hour until I sorted out an exact match."
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Bunnings
"A mum came in with her daughter in a swimming costume and plonked her up on the counter and I colour matched the bum of her swimmers which were a bright blue that were apparently her school colours."
- Chrysuss
Doing the Good Work
"About 10 years ago I was working at Walmart in high school, this lady once came in and said she has a color in mind but can't find anything similar. So she describes it and I guess how to make close to it. It comes out and she wants me to add a little more pink to it so I do it and mix again. This went on for near an hour but then I finally got it right. It was a great shift."
Skin Woman
"It's a tie between the large jar of ghee (clarified butter) and someone's skin. I got both of those within a week of each other. The skin thing was because a woman came in looking for a paint color that would match her skin so I thought, "f**k it, let's match her arm and see what happens." She loved it so much she ordered it for her whole house. I named that color "Susan's arm."
"Edit: I forgot a couple of other weird ones. scotch masking tape blue (was really happy with how that one turned out), multiple ottomans, a reading chair, dog fur, an egg, a painter's shirt and a painter's jeans. Whenever people ask me this question i'll respond with "let me tell you about the skin woman" which is probably the worst out-of-context sentence you could hear out of a home depot employee."
The Sign
walmart GIFGiphy"I worked at Lowes, but someone once wanted the blue color of the sign hanging above the paint area. There was no way I could get the sign down to put it in the scanner. I picked a paint Swatch that I thought came the closest and he agreed to it."
Glitter Girl
"It wasn't a color match exactly, we just had to mix a very bright pink. It was afterward that the mom of this little girl pulled out a container of glitter and said "will this be able to be mixed in with it too?" So we ended up just kind of saying forget it and mixing a big container of glitter into a gallon of paint. I'm not sure if it ever worked, kind of doubt it did, but the little girl was super excited about her glitter paint."
- Zierdo
Speckle
"Overheard while buying paint for my son's room. Lady in front was complaining bc the green she ended up with didn't have the 'speckle' she whips out a chameleon, photo of I presume the same chameleon, and is trying to tell the young lady that the color they made for her was so flat."
"The young lady was so confused. Lady kept asking why the paint didn't have the speckle like the photo and animal. Stood there patiently and watched the staff try and explain what dimensions are, how you can't match gradient, patterns etc with one shade of paint."
- Metemgee
Get the Tape
"Worked at Walmart about 18 years ago and had to occasionally run the paint area. Wife and husband brought in a 4 foot by 4 foot piece of wall that they painted. They wanted me to match it. The wife then pulls a paint splotch from her purse, and says something like "this is the paint we used from Home Depot!" Some people are just born to entertain."
Dear Ben
"Had someone bring a chocolate milkshake into our store wanting paint matched to it. My other favorite story is a couple who bought Ben Hogan's house in Westover Hills in Fort Worth. They brought in a sample of something that was oil based paint and had nicotine stains. We tried to explain to them that it use to be white or off white but the yellowing of the paint and the nicotine had turned it to this snot yellow color. They didn't care, they wanted the color Ben Hogan had been living with - just freshened up."
- C-Rock
For Jesus
jesus wink GIFGiphy"Not Home Depot, but we had a customer come in with a statue of the baby Jesus from her church's Nativity scene."
"The paint was chipped and she said the price to replace the statue was too high--so she asked us to see if we could match it. The woman working the paint desk with me said she'd give it a try. She succeeded. That's right, she color-matched the baby Jesus."
In the Sky
"My wife worked at Lowe's and had a lady come in asking for the color of the sky. My wife told her to look at the samples and pic a color and she'd mix it up. The lady said "No I want the actual color of the sky" like she wanted her wall to look like the inside of a Vegas casino. My wife seeing this lady is going to be a problem, asks her "What time of day do you want? If it's night time I've got black."
"Now the lady is getting upset that she can't just buy one can of paint to make her wall look exactly like the sky. My wife finished the conversation with "bring in a sample and I'll see what I can do." Lady then proceeded to ask for the manager."
- catjam
Look at that some people are nuttier than me. Retail careers are never easy. Whether you're selling food, cars or paint. The customer is always right and always crazy.
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Fox News Honored Aretha Franklin On Twitter—By Posting A Picture Of Patti LaBelle 😑
On Thursday, August 16, Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin reportedly passed away in her home. She had been suffering from pancreatic cancer, and both her family and the music industry at large are mourning her loss as a titan of vocal performance.
Fox News broadcast a memorial segment in remembrance of Franklin, but they happened to overlook one detail: at a key moment in the video, alongside the text "Aretha Franklin, singer, 1942 ― 2018," a picture appears of a woman singing. Upon closer examination, it's obvious the singer is not Franklin, but is, in fact, fellow superstar Patti LaBelle.
The photo of LaBelle appears to have been taken during LaBelle's 2014 performance of "Over The Rainbow" at the White House for President Obama.
Twitter had a few words to say about Fox News mixing up these two notable and very recognizable singers.
WHY would Fox News be petty and use this pic of Aretha and add Patti LaBelle in the background?!! https://t.co/vruO5Fm4vh— Vince J. Blige (@Vince J. Blige) 1534444142.0
JFC... @FoxNews is so inept, they used a photo of Patti LaBelle in their #ArethaFranklin tribute graphic. https://t.co/Rudbr6QYxW— Hugh Jasoul (@Hugh Jasoul) 1534444042.0
People threw healthy doses of snark in the news network's direction.
1/ It's understandable that @FoxNews would use a photo of @MsPattiPatti Labelle to announce Aretha Franklin's death… https://t.co/bMHRRl7yd9— Bad Fox Graphics (@Bad Fox Graphics) 1534443862.0
Fox News honored Aretha Franklin by using a graphic that contained a photo of Patti LaBelle. It’s probably hard for… https://t.co/pcLcs0yznZ— Chelsea Handler (@Chelsea Handler) 1534475502.0
Many on social media were simply shocked that Fox could make such a glaring oversight.
It seems @FoxNews used an image of Patti LaBelle, thinking it was Aretha Franklin. This is why the correct name for Fox is #FauxNews.— Rhiannon, 'queer as fuck' according to my friend D (@Rhiannon, 'queer as fuck' according to my friend D) 1534443461.0
@FoxNews why did you have Patti LaBelle in the background of that last shot of #ArethaFranklin— Gordon (@Gordon) 1534428960.0
Others were not as surprised.
Because of course Fox News mixes up Aretha Franklin & Patti LaBelle. https://t.co/zIXvD2282B— Chris Strider (@Chris Strider) 1534443572.0
After all, it was another big day at Fox News!
In the span of seven hours, @FoxNews has lambasted "communist Japan" and confused Patti Labelle for Aretha Franklin… https://t.co/VPH8mXVKH9— Charlotte Clymer🏳️🌈 (@Charlotte Clymer🏳️🌈) 1534447050.0
If you watched Fox News today you learned that the United States defeated Communist Japan and Aretha Franklin is Patti LaBelle— Sarah Cooper (@Sarah Cooper) 1534456438.0
The network attempted to explain their mistake, but their excuse was a bit disingenuous.
Okay this is getting weird. Fox News claimed in their apology that Aretha was accidentally cropped out of an image… https://t.co/Kb473k5A3D— Andrew Kirell (@Andrew Kirell) 1534452318.0
The mistake is especially cringe-worthy considering the contentious relationship LaBelle and Franklin shared. After Franklin's passing, however, LaBelle appeared to let bygones be bygones with a message on Twitter:
Rest in peace Aretha. ❤ https://t.co/QT7HeY5SIf— Patti LaBelle (@Patti LaBelle) 1534431847.0
One can only hope LaBelle, Franklin, and viewers will extend the same forgiveness towards you, Fox News.
H/T - HuffPost, Entertainment Weekly
Minimum wage is crap. There. I said it. We can all stop pretending it's not. If you've never worked for minimum wage, consider yourself impossibly lucky. Those of you who have will totally get what this reddit user meant when they asked:
Minimum wage workers, what is something that is against the rules for customers to do but you aren't paid enough to actually care?
We all want to think that work ethic just is what it is, but I promise you when you make next-to-nothing it's not enough money for you to chase down a poop-covered man to try and hold him until store security gets there. Yeah, that was personal experience. Nope, I didn't even consider giving chase. Here are some of the best responses - some may have been edited for content or clarity.
H/T: Reddit
My first job was at Ross. I was in high school, I was young and naive - far too young and naive for the horrors that awaited me the first day I was asked to help clean out the fitting rooms. Our store didn't have restrooms open to the public, though we would let customers use them if they asked - particularly women with children. Unfortunately, several customers decided there was no point in asking, they would just help themselves to use the fitting rooms as bathrooms. Diapers, menstrual products, and urine puddles were pretty common. Nothing could prepare us for the "Black Friday Incident of 1998"
The store was jam packed - obviously. It was Black Friday and it was Ross. We were swamped, there were three fights and one woman went into labor. But that wasn't even the bad part. The bad part came when the lone attendant at the fitting rooms grabbed the phone, hit the loud speaker button and let out a wail for help... and a few expletives.
"Oh HELL F^CK NAW. IF Y'ALL DON'T GET ME A MANAGER AND SOME GLOVES RIGHT NOW I AM LEAVING!"
One of the three managers on duty ran to her aid expecting maybe an influx of people that was too much to handle ... but no. Someone had used the men's fitting room to release their Black Friday anguish through their bowels. It was on the mirrors, the carpet, the fitting room walls, splashed into the next fitting room stall ... and they had used a few onesies from the baby department to wipe. Then they'd just left, leaving the employees - mostly high school kids and older ladies - to clean it all up. It was atrocious. The fitting rooms had to be closed, which made customers irate.
One Reddit user asked:
Retail workers of Reddit, what's your Black Friday horror story?
And yeah... there's mine. Here are a few more for your "enjoyment" - some responses have been edited for clarity or content.
H/T: Reddit
The things we believe we see when looking through the prism of innocence. We watch our favorite characters, whether they be fiction or flesh and bone, on the daily in childhood and they make us feel safe or euphoric.
They are some of the people who get us through the journey of life, in good times and bad. Sadly though, when we mature we're forced to see our favorite partners through an adult's spectrum and once nostalgia wears off the effects can be catastrophic. Or enlightening. Or it all stays the same and we briefly relive our happiest times.
Redditor missluluh wanted people to share... What character did you view totally different as a child vs. as an adult?