I killed for my daughter.

The child came over twice and help me paint. She didn't have all that much time, but I took all I could get. I am not refusing any reasonable offers. It turns out she does a decent final coat but on the primer coat she acted like she was on a clock and trying to beat it. That means I am now trying to cover some thick spots, some bald spots - I had hoped to get by with one coat of color paint in the living room, but it isn't going to happen. The dining room is done. Well, the patio door will need some semi-gloss on the molding. I will get to that later when I work on doors again.

While we were working to start the living room, she did the walls and ceiling in primer while I went along the bottom molding with a coat of primer and two of semi-gloss. Sometimes we ended up in the same spot. Somehow it was always my "fault." I was once asked if I know how to paint. She likes my habit of putting extra-wide aluminum foil in the paint pan, which makes for very fast clean up. She also likes to use every brush I have so I can be busy later washing them all.

We also had Gary here the first night she was here, but when I saw him I realized he was too tired to paint. I had him help me take the queen-sized bed we had put in the garage a few weeks ago up the stairs to the hallway so I will be able to put it in the child's former bedroom once I steam the carpet in there. Then we went to dinner.

Before he got here, child and I took a break out on my patio. We had two beers each and started to get a bit silly. Must have been the paint fumes.

The second night, when we were both painting in the same room, she suddenly jumped back with a high pitched screech that probably woke most of you up. I of course knew right away what the problem was. She was painting around the window and a spider appeared.

This child worked all night once and then went to emergency to have her stomach pumped, thinking she had food poisoning. She had her appendix out two hours later. She wants to be a surgeon and is looking forward to seeing how things work on the inside of people. She saw an autopsy being performed and was fascinated. She nearly totalled my car 11 days after she got her license and came home andfaced me without shaking (no injury to her). But one little tiny spider will reduce her to a helpless 2-year-old.

I just let her jump around, because I didn't want to mess up my paint job. She finally started threatening to leave without finishing her part of the job. I got up with a grunt, groan and sigh. (My knees are not happy with all this work I am doing.) I walked over to where she said the spider ran off. I asked what the problem was if he ran off, and she said she wanted to know where he is. Spiders are always "he," aren't they?

I looked around on the floor and stuck my foot over the poor, hapless little thing. I reminded her that house spiders eat other bugs and are a good thing.

She told me I had to grind and smear or she was out the door.

I sighed again, ground the thing to pieces, and smeared it on the drop cloth. She accused me of faking it.

Finally, she walked over and checked the corpse. She resumed painting, quietly. Me too.

Laughing inside my head doesn't count, does it?