Bye bye mermaid

Tonight, after two years of procrastination, I painted over the tattoo-shop mural of pneumatic mermaid and leering sea creatures that the previous tenants painted in my tiny hall. I'd come up with lots of possibilities for preserving her without having to actually look at her everyday; and every visitor suggested more. Maybe I should have gone with the fake-wall-with-mermaid-viewing-doors idea. I was also partial to the idea of running a pin-the-bra-on-the-mermaid competition in perpetuity, or painting in a sign that said 'Big Girls must wear Tops' in honour of the infamous sheet metal directive that graced Wilcannia swimming pool for years.

The final straw was the discovery that her flesh tones were the underlying wall colour (oil) and everything else was painted on top with very water soluble acrylics. So water soluble that when I wiped my first pass of a sugar-soaped rag over her, the seaweed smeared into the parrot fish, and grey nurse shark skin dripped everywhere.

Further evidence that that part of the house hadn't been washed for...seven years? Longer.

Anyway, it's done. She's gone.
Do I feel like a cultural vandal?
Not yet.