Who would have thought that painting my gate would bring such looks of pity?

In a country with extremely cheap manual labor, apparently anyone who brings such a task upon themselves is in a new class of oddness. The complex I live in is monitored by 24 hour security guards, and yet every single home has its very own 8 foot gaudy gate protecting the inhabitants from everything but tailless stray cats and the raunchy smell of the weekly, toxic DDT mosquito spraying. The gates vary in height and decoration, but mine is about as simple as they get – 6 feet high and lacking any adornment. Although the house is only three years old, the gate was starting to become a bit tarnished and rusty.

I knew I could’ve hired someone to paint the whole thing for about five bucks, but there’s some flaw genetically etched into Americans – we love home improvement. When I was growing up, my dad wasn’t content with buying a simple swing set for the backyard; nope, he spent three weeks constructing a 3 story monstrosity that would made a university track and field program proud. When he decided that a small pond would be a nice addition to the large yard, three months later and many hours on a bulldozer; we had a small lake in our backyard (not kidding, it was at least 150ft in diameter). This flaw has no place to turn when I live in a home that’s not permanently my own – hence the need to work on something; anything.

As I began the sanding and preparation for the gate, the looks began. Stares from the usual crowd don’t faze me – the perma-grin security guards, gossiping maids, the local curb warmers, and so on I went. In the next few hours, the neighbors began their drive-by gawking, and the Chinese man who lives next to me came out to admire my hard work. With a cigarette dangling from his mouth, he muttered,

“You know you can pay someone to do that?”
“Yeah, but I kind of enjoy doing it.”, I replied.
“It’d only be about fifty thousand Rupiah.” ($5)
“Yep, thanks, but I’m nearly finished.” (little did I know that I still had 2 hours left on the clock).
“But isn’t this your holiday?”, he said.
“Well, I wasn’t planning much for today anyway.”, I said with the warmest smile I could muster.

At this point I believe he shot me a look of either complete disgust or utter pity; maybe he thought I didnÂ’t have the money to pay someone; maybe he was dismayed by the shadow of sweat that had formed beneath me. At any rate, he disappeared on that note without another word. I distinctly heard some guffaws resonating soon thereafter, but will never know if they were directed my way or not.

As sunset approached, I was indeed wondering if I should have devoted an entire Saturday to this chore, but relished the soreness in my shoulders with a sense of accomplishment. That is, until a security guard strolled by and said the inevitable,

“Hey Mister, you know you could pay someone to do that?”