My girlfriend, Emily’s dining table. She began a fidgety habit of scraping the top layer of paint off of it with a screwdriver. I briefly griped about the potential of releasing lead paint onto a dining surface, but soon later realized that the chances of this table containing lead paint were slim. So I shut my mouth, and she continued scraping over several months, revealing a little more blue each time.
So long-term patterns begin to appear, and I wonder what they indicate. Perhaps the circle of unscraped paint is an average area where bows and plates rest. Another factor is that (I think) she usually sits on the near side of the table when she is eating alone, but when I am there, I always sit on the near side, and she sits opposite. She’s the only one who indulges in the paint scraping – I haven’t taken it up yet. Therefore, the circle indicates her scraping activity when she is eating alone (or with another guest who might sit on the far side). One hypothesis: when I am there, I clear the table sooner and allow her to sit and scrape the table clean, whereas when she is alone, she starts scraping before she removes the plates.
This is very insightful into your thinking process Mike. Actually the black circle that is left there, is a patch where the paint doesn’t come up as easily. I’m not exactly sure why, but I think that the blue paint might not be under the black patch as thick as in other places. You should pick up the screwdriver and give it a try sometime.