The Royal ‘We’ has another meaning
Many of us will be celebrating today and for good reason. It’s Royal Wedding Day, right? That’s about all I know about it but if you are reading this, then you probably aren’t a huge Royal watcher and I’m not going to offend you.
One thing I know about Royals is that they will refer to themselves in the first person as “We” instead of “I.” It’s the Royal “We.” Others do this too — like famous people. LeBron James has referred to himself in interviews as “LeBron James” instead of as “I.” But if almost all seven-some billion people in the world know who “LeBron” is by his first name then, I mean, we’ll give him a pass.
In my house we have a different form of a Royal We. It goes a little like this.
“We should paint the downstairs this weekend.”
In this case, the speaker is my wife and We = Me. The more accurate statement would be, “You should paint the basement this weekend.” The We is highly misleading and intended, I think, to build team spirit and make this project sound like a collaboration when it is a 100 per cent solo effort.
I’m not fooled. My wife knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t like to paint and I don’t like for her to paint. She’s not fussy enough. She splatters everywhere and she doesn’t even care if she paints over the electrical receptacles. She won’t even remove that one little screw that holds the outlet covers or light switch plates in place. She would just paint right over all of them. We can’t tolerate such sloppiness. In truth, the downstairs is badly in need of painting. We have two rooms down there — a rec room and a room that’s kind of a mud room with a desk and computer in it. I’m not sure what this is referred to in architectural or real estate terms:
“The basement features a spacious rec room, perfect for a games room or man cave. And there’s a cosy nook that’s a perfect space for a home office and storing your parkas and Cougar boots.”
The rec room was a deep, rich purple colour. The home office/mud room was a luxurious red. They are bold, beautiful colours that made our basement look like an after-hours bar. We did need to paint it.
Complicating the project, however, was that this past Sunday was also Mother’s Day, and Mother’s Day also falls right around my wife’s birthday, turning the whole weekend into a complete and horrible disaster. I mean, celebration. It’s a time of celebration. But it’s just starting to get warm out, the sun is getting stronger and the golf course is drying. The other three-quarters of my usual foursome were ready to get out there for 18 glorious holes and I was dying to get out with them for the first round of the season. Could I? Pulling this off was like “Mission Impossible” or a death wish but I was willing to see how far I could push it.
My strategy was bold and simple. I would block off a few hours for golf and spend every other waking second of the weekend painting the basement to make up for it. Saturday went OK. I got up and got to work. I fired up some music and started covering the purple and red that I must have thought were cool and edgy five years ago with a less interesting shade of not-quite-white.
I painted until 5:45 p.m. then cleaned up, sort of, in time to host a pizza and cake party for my wife’s birthday. Thankfully my kid is old enough to drive, so she picked up the food.
Sunday morning was my time to skilfully wedge in a round of golf. We teed off at 7:15 a.m. sharp, which gave me enough time to play and get cleaned up in time for Mother’s Day Brunch with the whole family.
Then We came home and painted. Actually, I painted while “We” had a nap.