My Blue and Orange House

[bob the brave]

This tells something about you as a person. Tell us what you would do.

 

You just bought a new house. You love the house, the area and the people seem very nice. The only odd thing is that all the houses in the neighborhood are blue except yours which is orange. You move in and after thinking about it, decide you like blue better as well. So, you paint the house blue and the next morning you wake up and stroll out onto the lawn to retrieve your newspaper. As you turn to head back in side, you drop the paper in shock. The house is again orange.

 

You ask around and no one seems to know anything. Perplexed but determined you buy more paint and again paint the house blue. The next morning you find the house is again orange. Exasperated you travel up and down the block knocking on doors and stopping people on the street. Most are polite and claim to know nothing, but you get a feeling they are lying. Some console you and tell you the house looks good orange. A few tell you you deserve to live in an orange house, but they won't explain what they mean.

 

So, again you paint the house blue and retire for the evening. But this time you pretend to sleep and instead lie awake to catch the culprits. Near midnight you hear the clinking of paint cans and the sound of brushing. As you peer out the window you expect to find a gang executing a fraternity prank but are surprised to find the entire neighborhood, everyone painting your house. You run out on to the lawn screaming, "Why are you doing this? Stop or I will call the police." Then you take note of a cruiser parked out front and two policemen busily painting the house. You continue quarrying but everyone simply ignores you and keeps painting. So, tired and confused you go back into the house and fall asleep. When you wake the next morning you find everyone gone, the house in perfect order and again orange.

 

What would you do, move, keep painting the house blue or learn to live in an orange house?

[Blue92]

Hmmm... perhaps I'd try to paint it white or another color I'd like so as to at least reach a negotiation. If they still did it, I'd adopt a guard dog or buy a paint ball gun and fill it with orange paint.

[mfan]

I agree there are more creative solutions than just moving, fighting, or rolling over. I like Blue92's "compromise" idea. Or put up special lights that make it look orange even though it's blue - you'd know and that's what matters. Another response: Paint other people's houses orange and try to make orange the new blue.

[Willywagtail]

Oooh. I like that. Paint other people's houses orange. Yes! That's what I'd do too!

[Cheetarah]

How much do I like the blue? Is this the principle of the thing or do I just not want to be the odd orange house on the block? Not want to stick out like a sore thumb?

 

I'm feeling like I don't particularly like blue so much that I must keep repainting my house, and that I am just wasting time and energy in order to blend. I'd live in the orange house.

[sara-pezzini]

I'd live in the orange house simply because i don't like having what everyone else has so i never would have painted it blue in the first place. I bought the house when it was orange so i fell in love with the orange or i wouldn't have bought it.

I like to stick out a little bit.

I have a pink kitchen in real life! Maybe i would do that in the orange house as well, that will fit nicely!

Besides here in Holland we love orange! (Except now not so much lol)

I do think wow that's a lot of painting at night, don't they have better things to do with their lives? Like sleep?

[ParisPaulette]

I'd say, "Well, it looks like Orange IS the new Black" and go back to bed. If my neighbors want to be up in the middle of the night painting, then apparently they have less busy lives than I do.

 

The fact is you purchased an orange house in the first place, you chose what stands out so why change it? Why be just another blue house in a sea of blue houses. I would probably put a blue trim on it though, because I love orange and blue together. In fact, the prettiest house I've seen in an adobe stucco house that's sort of a softened sunset orange with blue trim on the windows and doors--just really beautiful. (I envy those people every time I drive past it and I've never even met them.)

 

I would then put a sign on my lawn telling the neighbors if they want to paint the trim they'll need to talk to my lawyer after I go to court with the hidden camera footage showing them trespassing. Oh and put up a big trespassing sign.

 

More likely though, I'd take advantage of the situation. They're already up in the middle of the night painting, so why not put that labor force to work for you? So I'd sleep during the day, hide and when they all start in come out and grab them off one by one to do other projects. "Hey, can you...?" Approach them with work. I'd be out there shouting, "Who does taxes? I need help with my taxes." "You there, sir, come here. I need some things moved." Run around with lawn tools sticking them into people's hands and saying, "Ill take over painting, you get onto that yard STAT."

 

I would have the cleanest nicest house in the neighborhood. Of course, since extra work tends to terrify some people I'm betting they'd get tired of being asked to help in a myriad of ways every night and pretty soon they'd drift away leaving the house blue.

 

Make those differences work for you, not against you, I say.

[sara-pezzini]

Hahaha that was funny pp! Or be like you all like painting so much? well the inside could still use a fresh coat of paint, you do the walls, you the ceilings, you the doors but make sure to do it quietly while i go back to bed!

[Clinton]

I'd go inside, pour myself a glass of wine, realise that I'm totally insane, and revel in the experience

[tiredofvampires]

I'd find a good lawyer and sue the State for violating trespass laws, and have an investigation into the police complicity with vandalism, which is a criminal act.

 

Then I'd have to think long and hard about whether to stay in a neighborhood where I don't feel safe, my neighbors are hostile, the police are corrupt, and I feel like I'm living in a bad dream (and there would possibly be retaliation). You can't fix that problem with a paint job.

 

And that's nothing to do with the fact that orange is, unless in certain lights, my least favorite color.

[Hermes]

Bob.

 

I take it this is some kind of riddle, or a personality quiz. LOL.

[sara-pezzini]

Yeah i too wonder if we get to find out the results or whatever? Or do you now secretly know who the psychos are here on ena?

[tiredofvampires]

By the way, my first response was to paint other people's houses orange. But life's too short to spend my life on power struggles. Especially regarding housepaint.

 

This thread makes me think of the movie Neighbors, haha.

[Silverbirch]

Orange is one of my favourite colours. I recall a place I used to go where the walls were painted orange. I would prefer though, if I could paint decorative doodle type designs on some trim in black. Be nice too, if some additional colours could be added.

[ThatwasThen]

I'd paint the shutters blue and leave the rest orange. Maybe that would satisfy the rest of the neighbourhood and at the same time, make the house actually blend in nicely.

[catfeeder]

I'd see if I could get away with a different color, such as gray, and I'd improve the interior of house in ways that would add value--which I was likely to do anyway.

 

Then I'd sell at a nice profit and move to a neighborhood with people who can mind their own business and keep their paint brushes to themselves.

[ParisPaulette]

Another tactic is to go the whole "Oh, so you want orange, I'll give you orange all right!" Then you go out and find the most neon, like looking into the sun, orange you possibly can and paint it all orange. I'm talking so bright the neighbors gotta wear shades just to be able to walk down the street or drive and not run into something.

 

Then you walk out and smile thinking, "Chaos, confusion, destruction, my work here is done." Go back inside and sip a cup of coffee and wait for the neighbors to show up with that blue paint. Oh, yeah.

 

I think this whole concept would make a hilarious short story.

[bob the brave]

Hi Guys,

 

Thanks for the imaginative and entertaining responses. Sorry, this is typical of crap like this...no correct answer or hidden meaning.

 

It's an allegory about how people handle oppression and injustice.

 

In my opinion, to move or live in an orange house is to give in and thereby condone, reward and perpetuate malicious ideals.

 

To continue to paint the house blue everyday is better because at least we are fighting against the misdeeds, but nothing is gained. To be even more aggressive and paint others houses orange (ah, that would feel so good) alas solves nothing and may possibly exacerbate the situation to a dangerous state.

 

The goal is to stop the process, to paint your house blue and have them stop trying to paint it orange.

 

Anybody have a game plan on how to accomplish this? Remember, no one thus far is willing to talk to you about it and law enforcement is in on it too, so you can't seek the aide of conventional justice easily. I would really love to hear a great answer that solves this.

[catfeeder]

The goal is to stop the process, to paint your house blue and have them stop trying to paint it orange.

 

Anybody have a game plan on how to accomplish this? Remember, no one thus far is willing to talk to you about it and law enforcement is in on it too, so you can't seek the aide of conventional justice easily. I would really love to hear a great answer that solves this.

 

You could take lots of video, plaster it on social media, and use Internet outlets to invite crowdfunding to 1) hire famous artists to come and paint murals all over the house for national attention--and to defend their works, and 2) hire publicists and high profile lawyers for legal advice on a civil suit and ways to use societal pressure to get a criminal case escalated beyond the local justice system.

 

I'd still rather move.

[tiredofvampires]

FIGHT THE INJUSTICE, HRRRAH!!

 

I appreciate the spirit of the challenge, but it's hard to analogize such a thing with this exercise because it asks one to place value on certain things which in real life, one may not.

 

I do not value having a blue house at all costs, even though I would not put up with my neighbors constantly violating my property, either. So the only response there that makes any sense, that meets both those values, is to move. Do I let the bullies win that way? Yes, but if I am literally evaluating my values, having a blue house is not a hill I care to die on. I can't imagine a world in which staying to fight for my right to have a blue house would be worth the time and energy expense, when I could leave and sell it.

 

The truth is that some battles on not worth fighting for. A person has to pick their battles, and that's not a weak solution in this case. Moving represents me valuing my sanity and time more than this house or cause. It could be that the moral of this story is that the wisest person walks away from a bully, when fighting the bully is a waste of one's energy.

 

Also, the fact that law enforcement is in on it doesn't mean the justice system is out of reach. There is the court system, all the way up to the Supreme Court, after all. And any lawyer would lick their chops over a suit against the State for this, it's such a no-brainer. So your scenario should include the fictitious detail that there is no law protecting you against these acts, so there is no higher authority of justice to appeal to. Kind of like the situation in the U.S. before the 14th Amendment.

 

Having said that, if I suspend belief so as to make the color of my house a matter of life and basic liberties, and inescapable because wherever I move I would encounter the same, and assume there are no higher authorities to whom to appeal for justice (all caveats not specified) -- I would bake cookies for the entire community, go door to door, and distribute them. Cookies laced with cyanide, of course.

 

Nah, just kidding. I would bake cookies or homemade pie, and come over to talk to my neighbors in a meet-and-greet. In other words, I'd try to befriend them.

 

I also might throw a big party on my lawn, raise money through word of mouth (Crowdfunding's a good choice, Cat) to hire some awesome musicians, have all kinds of games and even a pony ride, and the main event would be the children of the town painting all over my house. I'd have kids on lifts and kids near the ground, painting my house, and the only rule would be that they all had to use blue. I'd make sure to have it televised on CNN as the Children's Art House event, and I'd arrange for Oprah to give every child who contributed to the completion of the fully blue house a spot on her show with prizes kids dream of.

 

So basically, enlist parental and community pride, make them all stakeholders in my blue house...and maybe exploit their greed a lil, lol.

 

This is also assuming Oprah would care to get in the middle of this.

 

(But I think I might be able to get by without her, too. Children are the answer.)

[sara-pezzini]

Paint house blue and place mines all over the garden around with warning signs of course.

See of its still worth trying to change it to orange! Ha! My aggressive streak is coming to the survive.....boobytrap that place

[Silverbirch]

Well, I LIKE orange - but I would like some black arty trim. I've recently given up belief/faith in justice anyway. I'd make the most beautiful orange house imaginable and I would be glad to be different to them. I wouldn't want a blue house anyway if that's what everyone else has. If every house is blue, then a blue house would be too ordinary for me.

 

 

[sara-pezzini]

I do think the explanations are bull btw.so weird that it's better to keep on painting blue than it is to have the orange house. I wouldn't want to be mainstream and have the same as everyone else and that is bad why? Think those answers are weird.

Hence the mines. Booom! Bazinga!

[bob the brave]

Ha, ha...Oprah, parties and land mines, now we're cooking! What if we surround Oprah with land mines? Ok, just joking.

 

I think all of these proposals could work under the right conditions, but in playing the devil's advocate, let's assume they don't. All the best efforts to put on a friendly face and bond fail and they toss bowling balls on your lawn exploding the mines to clear a path (yes, totally ridiculous...but awesome). As tiredofvampires suggested, let's up the bar and assume there is no law preventing this.

 

Also, keep in mind they are not violent if left to paint. They are very friendly during the day, will help you like any good neighbor. They always clean up the mess so nothing is disturbed but the color of the house. And, if you leave it orange they will stop invading your yard at night and all, for all practical purposes, would be completely normal. Except you want a blue house.

 

Now what?

[sara-pezzini]

Make the house of electric wire stuff so that if they touch the house the get shocked!