The Junior Helper

Help?

I am up to my eyeballs in paint, it takes me a few seconds to process what he just said.

I pause and look around, our entire kitchen a proper disaster area. 

All the doors are off their hinges, strewn randomly over the entire surface of the kitchen floor.  All the shelves are uncovered, exposing their messy mismatched contents to anyone who cares to examine them.  There are drop cloths and brushes, rollers and Phillips screwdrivers of various sizes, open paint cans and plastic containers of different shapes to fit every painting need.  I am wearing an old pair of pants and a T-shirt with smears and splatters covering the fabric and the exposed parts of the rest of my body.

It is an indescribable creative mess apparently screaming for help from every corner. 

But, despite the reign of seemingly unbridled chaos, there is a careful methodology behind my creative madness.

He is waiting, patiently for a fourteen year old, his eyes resting on me.

As much as I could use some help, and as much as I want to make him feel useful, even wanted and needed, I know this particular job exceeds his capacities.

I know that. He doesn’t.

I wreck my brain to think of ways to keep him occupied and feeling useful while limiting the damage incurred in the process. Our shared history works against him. At this moment I feel an acute sense that I have no margin left for additional remediation of avoidable man-made disasters.

Should I just chalk off the rest of the day as wasted and announce with a smile,

Thanks for your offer, dear, but I am all done for today. Great timing, though. Now we can all sit down and have ice-cream to celebrate. We can wash the brushes later?

If I wanted to be brutally honest, I would say something like,  

 I appreciate the offer but your help isn’t helpfull.

I don’t mean this in an unkind way. Still, the weight of the words could forever crush him and sabotage any future initiative, misguided and misinformed as it may be. Only a fool would want such millstone of responsibility tied around her neck.

Of course,  there is always my personal favorite,

The best way you can help me right now is …

This gives me a great idea.  A perfect idea that just might work…