Personal Voice

Jason had just moved into the neighborhood and was trying to get to know people. He decided to visit the neighbor who lived north of his house. He approached their house and rang the doorbell. As he waited, something caught his eye. It was a strange-looking bully barn.

Rod answered the door, and Jason introduced himself. They visited briefly, then Jason couldn’t help himself and asked about the bully barn. He was concerned that Rod might think it was a rude question, but his curiosity got the better of him, and he had to ask.

It wasn’t the construction that was strange, but how it was painted. Rod looked over at the building and laughed. “Oh, I suppose you’re wondering how it got painted that way?”

Jason nodded. “I’ve never seen a paint job like it.”

Rod laughed again. “And hopefully you never will. My wife told me I should repaint it because the way it looks has lowered our property value. But if there is one thing I hate to do, it is to paint things.” Rod then went on to tell the story of the barn.

He said that many people in the area buy those buildings to store their yard tools. He had considered building one, but he hadn’t done too well when he built their dog house, so his wife convinced him to buy one instead. “It would cost you about as much in materials to build it, and that doesn’t even count your time.”

Rod did decide to buy one, but he found he could get a better deal by purchasing it unpainted and doing the painting himself. As much as he hated painting, he hated spending money even more.

But then the barn sat there for over a year, unpainted and getting weathered. One day, Rod brought up the subject of painting it to the guys at work. “We’d be glad to help you paint it,” Seth said. “Do you have all of the materials?”

Rod said he didn’t, but could get them. “Don’t worry about it, Buddy,” Seth said. “I’m sure we could gather what we need amongst ourselves.”

That should have been Rod’s first sign to worry. Seth was a major joker. A second sign he should have caught was when Seth scheduled everyone to do the work on Labor Day weekend, knowing Rod would be out of town. “Don’t worry about a thing,” Seth said. “You and your family have a good time at your mother’s house.”

Rod was so relieved not to have to paint the barn that he wasn’t thinking clearly. He should have known that Seth was up to something.

Seth then went to everyone at work and asked them to join the “service project” painting the shed. Most agreed. What Rod didn’t know was that Seth asked everyone to bring their own paint materials, including any spare paint they had; the brighter the better.

That Saturday evening, Rod texted Seth to see how it all went.

“Great!” Seth replied. “Each person was in charge of a section, and it didn’t take very long.”

When the family arrived home late Monday night, Rod was curious and almost went to see the shed. But it was after midnight and had been a long weekend, so he decided he would go to bed and look at it the next morning.

Rod was still sound asleep when his wife got up to make breakfast. Suddenly, her piercing scream pulled him from his slumber. He thought there must be an intruder. He sprang from his bed, grabbing whatever he could find for defense, and headed to the kitchen. His wife was standing at the kitchen sink, looking out the window and trembling.

When Rod looked at the shed, he stood there in shock. It was painted with more than a dozen fluorescent colors in all sorts of patterns. There were rectangles, lines, and every other imaginable shape, including flowers. It looked like a hippy bus straight out of the sixties.

Rod finished telling Jason the story. “I promised my wife I would repaint it, and I do plan to someday, but I really hate painting.”