Kittens Ain’t Cookies
The Painter’s Rag:
Monthly Wit And Wisdom
From Your Friendly And Professional Fine Painting Company
There’s an old expression in Brazil:
Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking.
You may have heard that one. But in Brazil, as far as you know, this is also a popular expression:
Kittens born in an oven ain’t cookies.
We’re not sure either of these is a precise translation from the original Portuguese, or even from the original album liner notes, but they’re close enough.
The hard-working editorial staff here at The Painter’s Rag is pretty sure we know the origin of the first one… but that second expression has an origin which required something we’re not big on around here: research.
One hypothesis was that the poor downtrodden Brazilians from places like the resort hotels in Rio have no place better than their ovens to house their expectant Mama Cats (not to be confused with Mama Cass, which is also an expression from the original album).
But no, that’s not at all what’s expressed by this expression.
It turns out that, since the late 1940s, there has been a significant German minority living in Brazil. This is actually true. And generations of Brazilian-born Germans have used this expression as a way of honoring their ancestral roots.
“Germans born in Brazil are not fully Brazilian by nature,” said one Brazilian-born German who prefers to remain nameless, since his name is weird: Klaus Mendes. “Just as kittens born in an oven are still kittens, even though they may have been born in the same location as your basic pastais de nada, or other delicious Brazilian cookie or pastry.”
You may be wondering what this all has to do with fine residential painting, and you’d be right to wonder. The hard-working editorial staff itself is working hard to figure it out.
And here it is:
General contractors and handyman-types are NOT painters.
Not really.
Even if he was born in Brazil, or in an oven, or in a Brazilian oven, a handyman is not a painter.
To get the kind of result you would want from a painting project at YOUR beloved property, you would not want to rely on a handyman, and here’s why:
Your average handyman will quote you a ridiculously low price, and then deliver a ridiculously low-quality job. You might as well hire a Brazilian oven-born kitten to paint your house. It will do as good a job as your average handyman, and probably charge you no more than a can or two of tasty tuna.
A handyman hasn’t had the kind of intense, specific training in the intricacies of fine painting that we put our teams through here at Imhoff Fine Residential Painting. In fact, most generalists operate on the “how hard could it be?” principle, only to find out it’s much harder than they think to execute a professional painting project.
Once he gets your deposit, a handyman will go and look for subcontractors to do the actual work (in many cases). If he doesn’t find any, you might never hear from him again. I’m not saying there are unscrupulous fly-by-night “Chuck In A Truck” businesses out there – no, wait, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Not all handyman businesses are bad (just Chuck). But as a matter of fact, the BEST handyman businesses in town will often refer their clients to Imhoff Fine Residential Painting when those clients need a fresh coat of love on their property.
The team you’ll get from Imhoff Fine Residential Painting Company will be comprised entirely of trained, vetted professionals for whom payroll taxes are paid and insurance coverage is provided as appropriate. If anything goes wrong, they (and you) are covered.
We train people in our state-of-the-art training facility. They don’t run an obstacle course – in fact, as far as we know, some of them would suck at that – but they do learn every intricacy of fine residential painting, from properly masking trim to creating the perfect color transition on a bull-nose edge. Ask Chuck what a “bull nose” is, and the answer you get might be amusing.
We charge more than you’d pay Chuck, or any oven-born Brazilian German Siamese kitten, but we deliver much greater value for the money.
So when you’re tempted to go with a generalist or handyman for your painting project, remember what they say about that in Brazil. At least in the German neighborhoods. Think twice, and call Imhoff Fine Residential Painting Company instead.
You’ll be delighted with the service you receive. We won’t take too big a bite out of your budget, so please, don’t take a bite out of our cherished team members.
After all, painters ain’t cookies, either.
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Discussion Questions
What’s your experience with kittens which were born in an oven?
Use “bull-nose color transition” in a sentence today
Are you ready to call Imhoff Fine Residential Painting Company for the fresh coat of love your property needs – and deserves?
Send your answers to doug@imhoffpaintingcompany.com
(* Prize is at the sole discretion of Doug Imhoff, his heirs and assigns, and a select committee of Brazilian-born painters and cookie-baking kittens. Believe me, that’s one SELECT committee, I’ll tell you what. Grand prize winner has their choice of a trip to Brazil, a trip to Germany, or a trip to their oven, whichever is least expensive. A discount on painting might also be tossed in, to sweeten the pot. Deadline is the greater of Thursday and purple. Boring, lackluster, or unimaginative entries will be baked into a cookie in Mama Cass’s honor and mailed to Chuck In A Truck. That sounds pretty bad, so send us your best entry. Good luck!)
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Don’t forget: With Imhoff Fine Residential Painting, you always get more than a high-quality paint job… you get an enjoyable experience we hope you’ll treasure. We’re passionate about our customers and their properties… we’re a “painting family,” and we treat your project like family, too! Check us out online. We cavort around like oven-born kittens when we read the many enthusiastic five-star reviews our clients have shared on Google, Yelp, and elsewhere. And we can’t wait to earn our next outstanding review from you!
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Image Credit: shutterstock_1494075755-paid-black-kitten-with-paint-can-for-website-header.webp