The Midas Touch

We owe WNBA superstar Lisa Leslie a lot of thanks. To commemorate her retirement, Leslie received a pair of gold shoes, which my housemate, Dan, was envious of. “I want gold shoes!” Dan exclaimed. And since Dan is a do-er, by the time I got up the following day, Dan had already purchased a can of gold spray paint.

Suddenly, the possibilities were endless. What did I own that might look better gold? Better question: what didn’t I own that might look better gold? While Clare and Dan decided to gild their sneakers, I thought it’d be fun to spray my baseball mitt so I’d be the snazziest looking guy on the field. The results were stupendous:

I encouraged him to shuffle his feet while he walked to make it look like they were heavy - gold & heavy. Clare joked that the number one question Dan would get asked when wearing the sneakers is, "Are they real?" The actual #1 question Dan gets asked is, "Were you drunk when you did that?" No, no he wasn't.

Then we got a bit overzealous, and Dan thought it’d look cool to have his hubcaps painted gold. He started on one and it didn’t look quite as elegant as imagined so he stopped partway through. Fortunately, he can just blame it on vandalism; who would do that to his own hubcap, you know?

Still, we knew we were onto something and that our friends needed to get in on this gold action, too, so we decided to host a party called The Midas Touch. Our friends were instructed to bring items that they wanted to spray paint gold.

It was a great idea, if I say so myself. Since it’s the recession, people can’t afford nice, new things. That doesn’t mean our friends can’t turn their old items into more valuable things, however! Get rich quick, baby!

People brought a variety of items: shoes, an umbrella, a bike helmet, picture frames, a license plate frame, pennies, jewelry, toys, mantlepiece ornaments, a frisbee, a notebook etc. Even those who abstained from drinking alcohol grew intoxicated from the paint fumes, so all discretion toward what should and shouldn't be spray painted faded way more quickly than the gold paint ever will. While no one attempted to gild a hubcap again, two of us thought it'd be smart to turn our cell phones gold.

If that doesn't sound awesome to you, you're right! It led to some fun party games like catch the golden cell phone in the golden glove. Bling bling! When's the last time you left a party several thousand dollars richer?