All of you who saw #TheDress as blue and black, could you please come over to my house and tell me what color the paint is in my bedroom? Maybe not all of you at once. We could make a schedule. I’ll provide coffee and I have half of a pound cake in the freezer. The first eight people get pound cake. Or the first four selfish, hungry people.
The blue-and-black camp, although not as creative or stressed or other qualities that were slapped on those of us who saw white and gold by anyone with a Facebook page and two fingers, obviously can see true colors. And I am in need of those people.
Because I’m painting my bedroom and I feel like I’m being gaslighted.
While all of you and the entire rest of the civilized world were proffering an opinion on #TheDress, I was standing in the middle of my bedroom staring at the walls and wondering what was the color of #TheWall.
Lighting and photography made us question our eyesight and grip on reality in #TheDress. And in my case, made my husband tell me I “need help.” Paint is doing the same to me in my bedroom. Once again Benjamin Moore is going all chameleon on me and generally making me doubt the color wheel and science. I’ve looked at the paint chips, I’ve looked at pictures of rooms painted the same exact color, and I’ve even painted on samples in large strips all over the room.
It’s blue.
No, it’s gray.
Oh, yeah, it’s definitely green.
The name of the paint is no help. It’s called Wickham Gray but Benjamin Moore’s color naming staff is obviously a group of comedy writers who lost their jobs when 30 Rock went off the air. For example, White Cloud is a peachy yellow, Concord Ivory is a darker peachy yellow, and White Satin is robin’s egg blue. There is no such paint called Robin’s Egg Blue anymore. That should tell you something.
And the grays are as bad as the whites. There are the pinkish grays, the bluish grays, and grays that are sucked dry of all color to the point where you have to go put a sweater on when opening the paint can. All grays, however, look purple to my husband.
“Oh great, our dining room is lavender now,” he said, slapping down his hands, when we first started experimenting with the gray family in our house.
We persevered, though, and stuck with the gray pallet throughout the house and I’m happy to say we don’t have purple rooms anymore. We have blue rooms. No, wait, white rooms. No, definitely green rooms. We have green rooms.
Not that it matters. I love the paint color we chose for the bedroom and I know from a recent visit to The Exploratorium that if I want the walls to look purple I just have to put something white next to them. If I want them to look blue, I have to put on a red dress and go stand anywhere in the room. And if I want the walls to look white and gold, I have to put it on my Facebook page and ask my friends “What colors do you see?”
~ ~ ~
Read more of Diane’s Just Humor Me columns here. Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter to get new blog post notifications. And if you like her blog, you’ll love her book, Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.
