blood? hearts? lead?

We’ve been sitting around for approximately forty five minutes now talking about old flames and unrequited crushes in a desperate attempt to stall the removal of lead paint from certain sections of the back room.

Man, you know it’s bad when you’d rather reminisce about nonexistent or failed relationships than do the manual labor always recommended to distract you from that sort of thing in the first place.

The building our store is (oh, God, please, please, is) in was apparently built in the 1920s, commissioned by one Marshall Field himself. Time passed, etc, etc, and the date of construction is actually listed in public records around 1955 because of some major remodeling or repairs that occurred around that time. I’m guessing this was prompted by a fire, as the (now beautifully exposed!) hardwood floor has copious scorch marks that obviously predate the vinyl tile laid over it, and it was fashionable (????) around the 60s to add stuff like that (whatever. seemed like a good idea at the time). We knew the yellow paint was old, but we didn’t think it was THAT old, until I was cleaning the windows in the back room and realized they weren’t black, just covered with soot that had never been cleaned off…and there were soot stains on the yellow paint. Oops.

We bought a home lead paint testing kit and painted the stuff on the wall…all waiting in tense anticipation (Steven says, I feel like I’m waiting to find out if my girlfriend is pregnant) to see if the chemical would stay the same or turn red/pink, indicating presence of lead. A few forced bursts of laughter later, we couldn’t reach consensus on whether the heart-shaped blob (I swear to God that’s true and I didn’t put it in for symbolism) was really pink or just, you know, peach. (Steven says, Okay, let’s try another one) A few minutes later, we decided that if we mistook the stain for a BLOODstain it was probably positive. Thanks, wall. There are all different kinds of scars.

This wouldn’t be a problem (the proper thing to do about lead paint is, um, nothing and paint over it) but because it is SO OLD and painted onto a now defunct vent, it is peeling in places. Like right above our food store. So, off it comes, we don’t want anyone to get sick! Because there’s so little, we can remove it ourselves. With the advice of Rebecca’s father, who is experienced in such matters. And a respirator. And this weird gummy stripper thing. And drop cloths. And clothes that will be thrown away. Dear God, thrown away.

Onward, all, in all facets of the life and work!