If I Could Do It Over Again

            Johan wept at the pitiful sight before him. How could things have gone so terribly, horribly wrong? At what part of the process had he gone awry? He was not yet sure of how he could have done better, but he knew that he could have, somehow. If I could do it all over again, Johan thought to himself, I probably should have gone with plaster of Paris, instead of this latex based paint. His planned looked great on paper: wait until his little brother, Ziggy, had passed out from drinking (as he tended to do on Tuesdays), and paint his entire body some interesting color he found at the local store. Blue happened to be on sale today, so Johan had gotten enough blue paint to cover the outside of his house. He wasn’t sure exactly how much was needed to paint a grown human’s entire body, but he figured it would be less than that.

            After covering Ziggy’s body with blue paint, he woke up screaming. They quickly found out that Ziggy was allergic to latex, and rushed him to the backyard for a quick hose-down. Ziggy’s reaction wasn’t lethally strong, thankfully, but it did cause painful sores to develop everywhere the paint had touched him, and it had touched him everywhere. As Ziggy sat on the ground, rubbing antihistamine cream on himself, Johan pondered the possible consequences of covering Ziggy with plaster of Paris. Would there be much of a change in price? If so, which was more expensive? Would the plaster wash off as easily as the latex-based paint did? Johan strongly hoped that it wouldn’t. If it did, all the fun would be ruined, since Ziggy would not be forced to walk around town in some color that wasn’t his natural skin color, which was no fun at all. He wondered, for a minute or so, if this would give Ziggy pause next time he began drinking next Tuesday, but that was quickly disregarded. Nothing would stop Ziggy from drinking next Tuesday, the opportunity would present itself to paint him again. Oh yes, this time had resulted in a massive failure: not only had the paint washed right off, but Ziggy was allergic to latex, which was bad. Johan made a mental note to keep condoms away from his brother, for his own safety, but he tried not to think of that for too long. He had some research to do before next Tuesday.