Yars

The smell of paint can tell you what it's meant for: how well it will stick, it's age, even what it's meant to stick to. Sure, maybe what color it is too! Heh. It doesn't take a lungful either - you can usually tell with just a few careful sniffs. The paint we're using today has been in the can for more years that I can remember. Decades. The labels can hardly be read, see? This one, with a pink barn and white sky, you can just make out the name: Shawn, Shawn, Shawin Williams. Now once a season we take the cans out, carefully wash the lids so the rust and dirt doesn't get in, then gently open them up. Gently! The year we had the big wind storm, the one that threw an old sequoia through the Lodge porch... we spent a month fixing the roof! That year, we found one can that was dented and rusted out, probably left in the sun too long the year before. Well we opened it up, and it smelled so bad we choked back tears! No amount of stirring would fix that one up. Carson, hold tight to that one, the crack on the lip is rust. The best you can do is pop the lid back on gently - gently - and shake as gentle as you can, see if it turns milky smooth. You call that "congealing." Wait, wait, roll your wrists there. When you shake like that you'll toss the can or hit your lip like Angola did last summer, and you remember... Slow down the arms, move the wrists instead, like this. See? Now each of you has a brush, or a sponge or some cloth. Kats, we'll get you somthing later. Find the spot you peeled and - smooth now! - yes, that's it. You cover the... the cracks to keep your room dry through another rainy season. Yes, keep you boys dry.