The Blame Game

Wife Pam bought a gallon of paint from Lowes the other day.  Next morning as I was heading out she asked me to take the can of paint out of her car.  I said ok and went downstairs where I grabbed the trash from the kitchen, made my way out to the garage where I got the newspapers and cardboard from the recycle box, retrieved another bag of trash from the container outside, threw all of it in the back of the truck, got into the truck and left.  Sure enough, in all of my preoccupation with the trash I completely forget about taking that can of paint out of her car. No big deal right?  Wrong.

Later in the day, while I was at the Store working on something important like a beer order, Pam called me in a state of pissed-off-ness and informed me that the can of paint "that I asked you to take out of my car" had tipped over and had spilled all over the back floor of her car.  "There's paint everywhere" she informed me.  Those weren't her exact words as I left out a couple of her adjectives to describe the paint and where it was.  Here is a photo of the crime scene.

Paint Can Uprighted After Spilling on Car Floor

Feeling guilty, I left the Store for Jenn to watch, and shot home to do damage control - literally and figuratively.   However, on the drive home as I thought thru the situation, it occurred to me that if the Lowes' paint-mixer-upper folks had put the can's lid on tighter, then this would and should not have been a problem even if it tipped over.  Grant you, had I taken the paint can out of the car, it wouldn't have happened either.  However, in my Ridge boy way of rationalizing things,  the Lowes folks still get some of the blame here too don't you think? 

Well, I get home, and per some good advice from my buddy Bobby Wright whom I made a quick phone call to for advice, I used some hot soapy water and the ole shop vac to get the paint up and out of the car.  Pam supplied the towels and hot water as I scrubbed and rubbed and sopped up the paint for an hour or so and cleaned up the mess.  The floor came clean and the only casualty was a floor mat which I just tossed in the trash can, kind of full circle since that was where I began at the start of this little fiasco episode.  

Next day we went to Lowes, explained the issue and they made good on the paint.  They refunded our money for the spilt gallon and then gave us the replacement gallon at no charge.  So it all worked out ok.

I have done a little survey on this matter of my Buzzy's Country Store friends as to whose fault this was and the results seem to skew along gender lines:  dudes agree with me that Lowes is/was to blame, while ladies say it's still my fault for not taking the paint out as requested.  What can I say?  It was an accident.   That said, next time Pam asks me to take something out of her car, it's coming out - trash or no trash.