Even more cliche than those drugstore Father’s Day cards referencing golf and ale consumption and handyman tools, are the ones that show Dad taking a paint roller to his bird’s egg blue brick house and painting it Pepto-Bismol pink.
Okay, so he’s actually painting a pink house blue. That makes more sense. Perhaps Mom just painted it pink a month ago for Mother’s Day, and now it’s HIS day and his color. He gets eleven months of blue, but she only gets four weeks of pink. That’s not fair.
But, really, what’s wrong with the pink? Pink houses were so coveted in the 80s, in fact, that John Cougar Mellencamp even wrote a song about it.
Here he is in the video, excitedly pumping up the cheerleader and sweat-domed, sleeveless buddy whom he had recruited to paint the basic white clapboard house behind him. All hail pink houses! And really, ain’t that America, for you and me?
The ad continues with way more paragraphs than necessary, as was the way back in the day, when people weren’t reading posts on phones and had plenty of time to sit and read a short-story-length ad on paint.
And what mid-century dad didn’t appreciate a can of SPRED Glide-On, not to be confused with Astroglide? Glidden also made a latex wall paint called SPRED Satin, for even fancier fathers.
So maybe Dad didn’t want a pink house for good reason. What do you think? A palace fit for a king? Not even for a vacation house? Sometimes less is more.
