Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

I hate cooking. It strikes me as a tremendous waste of time and effort to spend more time preparing a meal than consuming it. I might be able to justify cooking for my friends, but of course, I hate to share, and they would hate to eat it, so we’re back at square one, aren’t we? Thus, my kitchen skills have not developed beyond homemade breaded chicken. Still, it’s an improvement over where I was a year ago. I couldn’t even be bothered to make a sandwich then, and neither could Dave. Our refrigerator was a testament to culinary apathy. I purchased a jar of jam shortly after we moved into the apartment, and I believe it maintained tenure in the fridge until we moved out. I like to think that it lorded over the butter. The horrible, aging butter.

Needless to say, our surprisingly large kitchen went completely to waste, or at least it did until Dave got back into Warhammer 40,000. “Got back into” probably isn’t the right way to put it. One does not “get back into” a heroin addiction. One does not “get back into” a terrorist sleeper cell. There is a deadly intersection of free time, income, and nostalgia that will make a newly graduated young professional do unreasonable things. When it hit Dave, it gripped him like some kind of brain fever, and soon our kitchen table (a very nice one, might I add) was host to an armada of Space Wolves.

You’ve really got to admire Games Workshop. This is a company that has perfected the art of maximizing profit. Some companies might publish the books that define the gameworld, produce the inch-high models necessary to play the game, establish the stores that both sell the products and provide play space, and maintain the convention circuit. Having engineered a Carnegie-esque monopoly on the supply chain, such a company might call it a day. The genius of Games Workshop is that they take this several steps further. Not only do they sell the models, but as a matter of course, the models are unpainted. The official Games Workshop paint supplies are sold separately, and remember, if you want to compete in any sort of official gaming, your models must be painted. Games Workshop has, in its own small way, attained the Holy Grail. It sells its customers half the product for twice the price, and they love it.

I bring this up so that you can understand the state of our kitchen table in the midst of Dave’s relapse. Completed models were arrayed impressively in one corner, while models in various stages of construction were scattered upon newspaper, surrounded by a forest of brushes and paint bottles. I had to admire Dave for swallowing his hatred of the crafting aspect of the hobby and really committing to the tedious work ahead of him. Hunched over his models and working against the harsh light of a re-purposed desk lamp, he stripped, glued, detailed, painted, and polished like a delirious Swiss watchmaker. Sure, his Dreadnought wouldn’t win the Golden Demon any time soon, but it looked pretty damn good.

I came into the kitchen one day to find Dave hard at work, using a brush no wider than an eraser to apply blue paint to a model.  “What are you painting?” I asked, absent-mindedly opening the fridge to check on the jam.

“I’m painting my Ultramarines.”

The jam’s continued reign assured, I closed the fridge. “And you chose to paint them blue?” It struck me as odd. Dave was the kind of guy who favored reds and blacks, and maybe an occasional dark blue. Certainly not the vibrant shade he was currently applying to the model.

“It’s the official color for them. See?” He held up the Games Workshop brand bottle. “Ultramarine Blue.”

I paused, and then smiled. “Dave, ‘ultramarine’ is a color. It is, itself, a shade of blue. You’re painting your Ultramarines ultramarine. It’s a ridiculous, dorky pun.”

He and I both agreed that this was awesome. In retrospect, it’s one of the best moments I’ve ever had in a kitchen.