The Cheap Seats Quiz

My favorite home project to periodically tackle is interior painting. No priming, no taping, no drop cloth. Two coats - done. Fresh, clean, new. Before a job change back in the late 90’s, I abhorred painting walls. Tedious and time consuming - with all that prep work, edging and rolling - a tobasco enema was preferable.

And then I started teaching middle school.

Teaching, especially middle school, is a career with no start or finish. Oh sure, there is Labor Day and Memorial Day, with its alleged “break” in between, but I’m referring to something less tangible.

Students enter our classroom in September half-formed. Hormonal and oily, they show growth and progress in fits and starts.  By late May kids are scratching the surface of  their mid-summer daydreams, measurable learning having ebbed to a low tide.

Painting, interior or otherwise, has a defined beginning and ending. With that last brush stroke or roll comes the satisfaction of a job well done. Middle school, on the other hand, is akin to a painting project half-done. Satisfaction comes from stepping away from the students now and then to admire the work, but with the knowledge that the job will be completed by other people down the line, wielding other brushes.

And so I paint. Even when I don’t have to.

Case in point, I have a small wall in my home that used to have an accent color. My daughter was quite enamored with the wall and its color, primarily because she had advised me (correctly) what color the wall should be. After I painted over it (for no solid reason, other than maybe boredom) with a neutral color, she went ballistic. Her subtle response, “This wall is an abomination. Now this room looks like an asylum for the mentally ill.” Maggie. Sugar-coating it.

Up next for a re-paint is my bedroom, which has been accurately described as a grandmother’s kitchen in the late 70’s. Pale yellow. Who knows, maybe I intentionally botch it on the first try just so I can keep painting.

Regardless, I wandered into the paint store last night determined to get just the right shade of light blue. 45 minutes later I stumbled outside with a fistful of paint swatches, dazed and more than a little bleary-eyed. Staring at the ream of colors in my hand, I suddenly realized the career I should have had, one that combines my craving for a job with a definable ending like painting, as well as my love of words.

Paint Color Namer (or something much more sophisticated than that). Maybe Shade Accent Processor. Sap for short.

Hey, someone’s got to have those jobs, right? Changing obvious colors like red, green, orange, and brown into Torrid Affair, Ripe Kiwi, Ginger Tea, and Country Roads. Sounds like a walk in the park to me. Wait, that’s a good color name – Walk in the Park. Probably an earth-tone, and probably already taken. Damn. Oh well, plenty more where that came from. After all, if Tom Sawyer could sell his friends on the idea that painting a fence white was a high privilege, imagine what I could do if I had told them it was Glistening Angel?

To be fair, the interior paint industry isn’t the only juggernaut who dabbles in euphemisms. The Business of War has been renaming its military campaigns for more than a century. And why shouldn't they? Words like invasion, siege, counter-attack, ethnic cleansing and genocide don't sound as palatable as Operation Barbarossa, Operation Northern Lights, Operation Clean Slate and Operation "I Was Just Following Orders."

In fact, the need for a good euphemism has spawned an entire cottage industry of creative writers. In this era of the never ending bait and switch, the need for deceptive wordplay is at its high water mark whether it's in politics, war or wall colors.

So I say if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. And to that end, I have created the first installment of The Cheap Seats Quiz for your enjoyment. The object is simple: guess if the words are the names of a paint sample color or a 20th century military campaign codename (nothing fictional here folks. All real). You might want to get out a sheet of paper. Answers are written at the end of the post. Good luck and here we go:

1. Evening Light

2. Bowling Pin

3. Big Horn

4. Northwoods

5. Golden Pheasant

6. Remember the Alamo

7. El Dorado Canyon

Not easy are they? You didn't think those folks in the Pentagon were stupid did you?

8. Tailwind

9. Cedar Falls

10. Chopping Block

11. Cavalry

12. Sunrise

13. Alley Cat

14. Get a Grip

15. Menu

16. Napoleon

17. Arc Light

Completely lost, aren't you? Me too. Almost done.

18. Eager Glacier

19. Heavy Armor

20. Mustang

21. Ajax

22. Mudslide

23. Elephant Watch

24. Trail Dust

Maybe after I've worked for Sherwin-Williams for a few years, they'll let me pick up some extra contract work with the CIA. I figure those goons over at Langley love all this codename shit. Assassinations will be renamed Caspering, drone attacks will become Crop-dusting, and sanctioned torture will be called Noogie Breaks. Who knows, maybe after six months they'll make me an offer.

Answer time:

1. Evening Light - Military codename given to the failed US attempt to rescue the embassy hostages in Tehran, Iran in 1980.

2. Bowling Pin - A fairly boring white.

3. Big Horn - Sounds ominous doesn't it? Nope, a pedestrian brown.

4. Northwoods - Very cabin-like feel, right? Hell no - codename for a plan to incite war between the US and Cuba during the 1960's.

5. Golden Pheasant - It's not paint either, but the codename given to the deployment of American troops in Honduras in 1988. Who knows why.

6. Remember the Alamo - You bet it's paint! Tan, in fact. Much more boring than that slaughter back in the 1830's.

7. El Dorado Canyon - Military codename for US airstrikes against Muammar Gadhafi's Libya in 1986. He chilled after that, wearing Bono's sunglasses before Bono did. Poser.

8. Tailwind - Codename given to Tricky Dick Nixon's alleged use of nerve gas against US defectors in Laos in 1970. Alleged. Sure. Right.

9. Cedar Falls - What a nice town. Hardly - just the codename for US attacks against Viet Cong positions in the Iron Triangle of Vietnam in 1967.

10. Chopping Block - Heads will roll, but some other time because this is just a nice dark, dark gray.

11. Cavalry - Give 'em Hell, General Custer. Or just douse them with a cool shade of dark blue.

12. Sunrise - An obvious color, but really the codename for the forced relocation of Vietnamese peasants in 1962, before all the real fun started.

13. Alley Cat - They can be aggressive, but not this one - another grayish-blue.

14. Get a Grip - Were you thinking counter-attack? Me too. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it was going to be plain old gray.

15. Menu - Off-white, right? Heavens no - the aerial bombardment of Cambodia in 1969. Alice, I'll have a cheese omelet, orange juice, and a sustained campaign of terror from above.

16. Napoleon - As blue-black as those classic Bonaparte uniforms.

17. Arc Light - It's North Vietnam's turn in 1965 to receive a constant B-52 assault.

18. Eager Glacier - Codename for spy plane missions over Iran in 1987-88. Glaciers in SW Asia?

19. Heavy Armor - Sounds, well . . . heavy. Or dark blue. Meh.

20. Mustang - Alright, finally going on the offensive! Or simply an odd name for dark purple.

21. Ajax - I give up. But I guess it was the codename for the CIA-backed coup d'état that put the US's handpicked man on the throne in Iran back in 1953.  

22. Mudslide - I would have guessed some sort of sustained assault against an enemy who does not hold the high ground. But never greenish-brown. Sounds like camouflage though, doesn't it?

23. Elephant Watch - I'm numb. It's taupe, whatever the hell taupe is.

24. Trail Dust - A trick question! It is a nice shade of sandy brown AND the codename for the spraying of the herbicide Agent Orange in Vietnam over a 10-year period which ended in 1971. Oh yeah, and it caused cancer in countless American servicemen, whose government then did everything in its power to deny those same veterans their proper benefits. Nice. The paint, fortunately, is harmless. No lead in it or anything. 

The Cheap Seats Quiz: fun and educational. Who woulda thunk it?