Done Yesterday

We'll soak it in a caustic soda bath says M. The old white plastic bin will do fine. The bath'll take a while but it'll strip all the paint off the metal. Then we can distress it a bit, steam punk it up, and it will be a perfect secret box for Tawd's new gigs at Music Box.

Well, the days go by...
And in January in Perth, it gets a lot, a lot, a lot hotter.
44 was it? 43?
Dunno, after 35 it's all nasty.
Scorching, cloudless, still and why the fuck aren't I at the beach or under an iceberg?

But to no avail. Back in the bath, still the fire-engine red reins supreme every time I check. To be fair, at last look, there was a sickly but self-effacing film comprised the worlds most pathetically small bubbles on the soda's surface, but still the paint lingered on, seemingly untrammeled by the supposedly intense chemical assault.

We need more paper by the way! It has to be the same size for all the typewriters and all the gigs to come, Web Designer says so. For when the 'secrets' are scanned and displayed on either the website or in the archive. And, it has to be not sooooo white; it's too new looking and hardly atmospheric or inviting, altogether too clinical. Well maybe we could dye some in tea baths I say to M. Yes, he says but it will make it all crumpled and more difficult to stack and for peeps to load onto the typewriter roll. Well, dammit, can't we just buy some, I need it yesterday. You and your bloody generation wants everything now now now says M rather too predictably but no less damningly and he's got a point.

So, I drag our sorry arses pronto to the local branch of the multi-national hardware chain; I must get the job done yesterday OK? The job being a second old tool box M has found coz one aint gonna be enough given the new paper size and all.
A liter of your finest paint stripper please... Home again home again jiggerty (sweaty) jog. then out the back with me, the goop, the brushes, gloves, apron, paper and scrapers.

Leave it on. Just leave it on! M again.
Nah... It's good look at the bubbles, big toxic proper bubbles...
Yeah but that's only the first layer and the scraping you've done looks pretty shite. Nah, it's fantastic. Look how quick it's working. Will be done in a jiffy old guy. You'll see.

It wasn't in a jiffy or even two. Molten paint scrapings get everywhere.
The box, despite my best efforts and in spite of the latest chem-tech that money can buy from virgin-rain-forest harvesters, LOOKED CRAP. It ended up at the end of a very hot WA summer arvo in the soda bath with the other one.

But not before...
Hey M, if this stuff works that fast on paint, this burning through these gloves isn't good right???

Now now now, grins M.