Shopping for Color

I made three trips in three days to the big-box home improvement store in Lewisburg this week. I don't usually go to Lewisburg more than once a month, so this is city-overload for me. The motive for this frequent driving was paint selection for the new house. On Thursday, I got paint samples, on Friday I bought paint for three rooms and half-pint paint samples in some colors I wasn't sure about, and on Saturday, I bought more paint.

I really love looking at paint, and paint-color displays. Here are just a few of the colors I brought home and held up against the walls. You can see I'd already decided on "green" and "blue" and "yellow," but comparing hues and tints and shades...I could turn it into an end in itself.

I'm evidently not the only one who sees the possibility of paint-choice paralysis, according to The Onion's Study Finds Paint Aisle At Lowe's Best Place To Have Complete Meltdown.

"Even the most well-adjusted individual can be reduced to a feeble, trembling shell of his or her former self after a half hour of paint shopping at Lowe's," said Dr. Olivia Kang, a behavioral psychologist at the University of Texas and lead author of the study. "The pressure to make a decision between two seemingly identical shades of beige, the glaring fluorescent lights, the frantic patrons on all sides—it's too much for the human psyche to process."

"In terms of causing normal, healthy adults to completely lose their shit, the Lowe's paint department amounts to a perfect storm," Kang added.