My father was a very generous man who’d literally give you his last shilling. However, in the interests of as he put it ‘separating the needy from the greedy’ he would sometimes accept a favour in return. Ofttimes this was a poem or a sketch, as most of his drinking buddies were artists and dreamers, but on this one occasion he was owed by a guy called Ructions who was reputed to be a painter, not the easel kind the handyman kind, so Ructions was commissioned to paint the exterior of our house.
Following much ado about nothing and a few false starts involving ladders, the painting proceeded until one side of the house was a glorious grey and the paint ran out. My father, ever extravagant, had bought the best quality paint for our slum dwelling but Ructions, dispatched to the paint shop and thinking no one would notice, bought a cheaper paint, an entirely different shade of grey, pocketing the excess cash.
Thus it came to pass that we had the only two-tone house in the street, the source of much merriment for the neighbours, especially when the same Ructions knocked down our gate posts with his van when backing out of the drive. You couldn’t make it up!
And no, that certainly wasn’t the last time a not so handy man came to call.
=============================
Posted as part of the 5 minute freewrite challenge Day 102, by 
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-102-5-minute-freewrite-monday-prompt-paint
Images: pixabay