I had such high hopes.
I perused Pinterest the night before, finding colors that had been rolling around in my head.
Got 'em. Colors picked, tabs saved on my phone for easy access to show the clerk in the store.
We head into town and arrive at a different store than we originally saw before. No biggie. There are many.
As I walk in, fumbling to adjust Naomi in the Ergo, I see a large display of 1-gallon paint cans with a tiny sign on top: 558 RMB (That's the equivalent to $90.) I about. fell. over.
That's not it, I thought. There are other options. They're just putting the most expensive right out front. Stay calm.
I walked through the tiny, yet clean and organized, store and found more of the same. Way over-priced gallons of paint. I turned to Michael and said, "We can't do this. This can't be it. What is going on? The Chinese do NOT pay this much for paint!" They grumble when the carrots are 5RMB instead of 4, for heaven's sake!
The 5 clerks in the store were suddenly surrounding us. Nothing new. They fawned over Naomi while I was stifling a mini panic attack. We asked one of them if there were other options. She showed us some 5 gallon buckets. 700-800RMB. WHAT?!
We asked her why they were so expensive. She rattled off, at warp speed, some answer that I'm sure was full of valuable information. Too bad we didn't have a class on paint-buying terminology.
We called a friend who introduced Michael to a man in the village who we may hire to do the paint job. (Which will turn out to be cheaper than the paint itself!!) And she speaks English. I explained to her that we were trying to buy paint, but was it supposed to be this expensive?! She said she'd call us back after talking to her painter friend.
She called back and said the small cans should be under 100RMB. That's what I thought! Whew. I wasn't crazy. Let's get outta this Prada Paint Shop.
Our helpful driver knew of another place to go. We go about a mile and arrive at another shop. I could tell it was a step down. Good!
We walk in and see a range of small cans from 300-500RMB. Better, but still too high for my plans! I had ideas for 5 different colors!!
The clerks swarmed again, giving direct advice about Naomi. Her feet are cold. She's hot. She's sweating! She's too tight in there. Thanks, ladies. I've got this. Don't mess with this already-stressed Mama.
After talking for a while, I realized we may have to paint our entire home one color. I wasn't super happy, but anything is better than white.
I mentioned to one of the ladies that quality paint in America is around 200RMB, not 500! She said, "Just buy a big can! It's cheaper that way!" I told her my dreams of several different colors and how there's no way we could afford that many different cans.
"No problem, we can just divide a big can into many different colors!" (Well, that's what I heard. I would find out later I must've missed a few words.)
Hallelujah! That's our solution! Buy a big can for about 400, then they'll split it up into different colors. My blood pressure dropped significantly. To avoid too much confusion, I still cut out a few colors and narrowed it down to 2. Ok, good. We have a plan.
By this time, my nervous rocking had paid off and Naomi had fallen asleep. We were both sweating profusely. I moved over toward the single fan in the place. One of the clerks decided I was thirsty and brought me some hot water. Perfect. I love drinking hot liquids when my body is already over-heated. (That's what they do, though. Better for your body. Even when your body is already warm. Yeah, I don't know.)
Michael was getting his money out...they were working the color-mixing machine. Such relief.
Then. THEN, they put the color-y liquid in a small plastic bag (no Ziploc--just a small, open-topped bag) and wrote some characters on a piece of tape and secured the top of the bag. Um, what's going on? Is this hot water getting to my head? I just kept watching.
They did it again with the other color mixture. Then put them both in a dixie cup. Ya know, for safe keeping.
It all started clicking. We were going to be mixing this 5-gallon bucket of paint ourselves. Oh my.
We got the gist of the instructions---pour the color in the paint, and mix! (How much color in how much paint? Mix with what??) Silly me, too many questions!
We just chuckled, took our paint can, dixie cup, and "free" paint brush and were on our way.
Our plan from here is to contact the village* painter and hope he has one of those mixing machines. If not, let's hope he knows how to mix paint. Hope is the key word because he only sells white paint. I can't make this stuff up.
I feel a Part 2 coming on. Let's hope it's not quite this exciting!
*Oh yeah, I haven't written about our new location. We live outside the city about 30 minutes on a college campus. The only things near us are the mountains and a village. Albeit small, the village has some handy little shops. We're thankful for the village people who help us out and saving us a trip into the city!
