Never let it be said that I haven’t done my part to help stimulate the economy this summer. Just ask the employee manning the mixer at any one of our local paint counters.

What can I say? One wall leads to another. All baseboards intersect. And it’s hard to pick out the right color the first time. Really hard.

But at least I know it’s not just me that has trouble deciding between satin and flat, and “Mannered Gold” and “Monroe Bisque.. One guy at a counter admitted to his own fiasco.

“Yes, yes, I understand,” the paint professional said, nodding his head. “When my wife and I painted our dining room we loved it – until the next morning. In that light it looked  totally different, some kind of a yuck green.”

What? Here’s a guy wearing a name tag – a company-issued shirt even – and he’s telling me he has issues with color selection? Where does that leave someone like me?

I’ll tell you where. Stimulating the economy, that’s where – one pint-sized sample at a time.

People who live in houses with walls that have no knocks from remote-controlled Air Hogs and door frames that have no marks from pull-up bars and ceilings that have no splatters of spaghetti sauce (translation: you live in a brand-new house) may find it hard to relate to this little essay on what I did with my summer. That’s OK. Painting has its perks.

I’ll risk my housekeeping reputation and disclose some discoveries made while moving puddled drapes and a computer cabinet during the prepping part: three Lincoln logs, a receipt from 2006, my son’s geometry CDs, a key to something, and a laptop charger.

Now if that’s not worth engaging in extra commerce, I don’t know what is.

But alas, not everyone has been enthusiastic about my ongoing project. Six weeks into it my husband asked, “You about done?”

I began listing what was left – an upstairs bathroom, a door here, a cabinet there. He was unfazed.

“I’m really tired of seeing you in that outfit,” he said point blank, no hint of apology.

I looked down at my stretched-out tee, its crusty swipes of “Clary Sage” and “Cobble Brown” glowing like medals of honor. I cinched the 1990s capris with “Accessible Beige” at the frayed hems a little tighter.

“Whatever could he mean?” I wondered.

But the truth is, I’ve spent just about as much time in regular clothes studying paint palettes as I have in that getup dipping rollers. I found myself drawn to certain colors just because of their names, and it’s all the fault of people who actually make their living calling blue “Suddenly Sapphire” and orange “Pumpkin Burst.”

It’s their job to make shoppers like me think that “Moroccan Red” will somehow transport me there, and that flavorful “Raisin Torte” looks good in latex, too. 

But before your college student thinks about changing majors, there’s something you should know. There aren’t many openings in that field.

And after a summer of visiting those mixing counters, I think I’ve figured out why. Most people just aren’t taking their responsibility to stimulate the economy very seriously.

Wesson resident Kim Henderson is a freelance writer who writes for The Daily Leader. Contact her at henderson7@juno.com.