The Idler

Spray Painter

I once left a perfectly good college course to work as an apprentice spray painter in a hell-hole of a town called Kelty in Fife.

The wage was poor, the fumes were appalling and I was forced to clean out the filthy spray painting filter machine on a weekly basis.

The panel beater had a tendency to enjoy heating up door handles with a welding torch, and the spray painter liked to send you out to wash vans during heavy rainfall and snow blizzards.

My fingers were practically worn to the bone rubbing down car panels with wet and dry paper, and no-one was ever remotely happy with the results. After being moaned at to “rub the thing down properly” I decided one day to rub the fucker down to the bare metal just out of anger. That wasn’t well received either and prompted them to put me through an alleged spray painter’s initiation ceremony, involving having my knob and balls painted with underseal.

The whole company was run by what can only be described as an idiot of an unsurpassing level - who on a daily basis, at every meal time, would eat stinking meat pies with his oily grubby hands, and get half of the awful meat over himself instead of in his mouth.

My emancipation came one morning when after being sent to a neighbouring garage for a long stand, I did so by spending it up the town until mid afternoon. The following day I point blankly refused to go for the spray painter’s breakfast and then refused to do anything for him at all. Two hours later I was out of that hell-hole and on my way home with the biggest grin I had had for 3 months.

Psybernaut