In Which We Are Painted

 

Here is some context to help this little tale of woe make more sense: I stay up all night reading and enthralled by YouTube videos and otherwise wasting my time and then go to bed about 6:00 a.m., just when the rosy fingered dawn is peeping over the horizon. This is not some occasional imprudent affectation, it is my regular schedule. I will not be taking questions at this time. 

So anyway, earlier this week I was jostled sort of awake by the racket my cat Toby was making showing his scratching mat who was boss. He was banging around like a goddamn percussion section, even more so than usual. It went on for a while until I came close enough to something like consciousness that I could realize Toby was next to me taking up more than half the bed as usual. What got my attention was the noise was continuing. Toby and I are the only authorized attendees allowed here in my bedroom so if we weren't making the din, who the hell was? 

There is nothing like a quick jolt of panic to finish waking you up, and that's what helped me to realize it was the guys painting the outside of my building who were chatting and yucking it up in Spanish while on one of those very scary looking platforms suspended from the top of our building and banging against the wall. 

the scene of the crime.

The property management people had warned us that the painters would be here, but I had underestimated just how disruptive they would be. Plus, as you can see in the picture below, my particular unit is at the very end of the building in the part that is sheathed in tastefully oxidized panels  and not subject to painting. 

I naively took that to mean I wouldn't have to deal with any sleep depriving foolishness, but I had overlooked that there is one tiny bit of my apartment where one of my bedroom windows sits and that is just past the end of the metal plates. That tiny bit had had to be painted. Thus the early morning aerial racket directly outside my boudoir.  

It's really sort of impressive how very casual the boys out there are considering they are dangling over the sidewalk on some flimsy looking scaffolding that's just hanging off the side of the building. I spent way too long trying to come up with the name or term for this dangling scaffold, but it turns out "aerial window washing equipment system" is the closest I could come up with, although "death trap" seems like it would be equally accurate. Let this video demonstrate: 

Dude, you are one snapped cable away from becoming a workplace tragedy. Plus you're making way too much noise, could you keep it down? 

Guys I wouldn't mind waking up for: 

If you gave a monkey a phone, it would have the same perplexed look on its little face, but it wouldn't be as cute.

Did you know too many cashews can result in the poops? It is a sad, sad truth.

I cannot be trusted with a bag of cashews, I have to decant them into a sensible serving size in a bowl or i will continue to shovel them into my gob until they come out the other end as fast as they go in.

My editing this post is considerably hindered by Toby the cat demanding brushes.

Poor thing cannot fit his massive buttchops into the tub.

I have no idea what may be going on here.

I just remembered I had planned to make this week's nekkid guys all B&W, but I slipped up.

Oops.