I Color Outside The Lines

Apparently, adult coloring books are a thing now. No, really, like a major deal. There are special books for adults to color in (for those times when Elmo just doesn't fill that creative void) and special coloring pencils and everything. (Alright, admittedly, I'm not sure the colored pencils are special. They might just be like an artist's grade or something. Definitely not the kind you find in the kids art supply aisle though.) This is a new trend that's designed to be, uh, therapeutic? I think that's probably what they're going for, right?

The thing is, I've seen some of the "adult" coloring pages and they really just look like black and white paisley designs or swirl art without the paint. Do they make actual coloring books with like THINGS in them? Do they cater them to professions perhaps? "The Big Book of Baking Coloring Pages" or "101 Supreme Court Justices to Doodle On"?

I'm seriously asking because I don't know.

The reason I have to ask is that I have kids. So if the wild urge to color a picture comes upon me suddenly, I grab the closest coloring book I can find, which is probably filled with Big Bird or Bubble Guppies, try to hunt down a few unbroken crayons, and go to town. I can create beautiful pictures of fictional fish, life sized muppet friends, and awesome firetrucks. Then I will write my name at the bottom and hang it on the fridge. (Ha! Kidding. I'd write one of the kids names on it since it would probably be half-assed and half finished. I'm not claiming that Picasso.)

Maybe I don't understand this hip new phase because my downtime hobbies are reading or watching tv or maybe playing a brain building game on my phone. (By brain building I mean completely brainless, absolutely addictive farming/jewel/word game.) You know, adult hobbies. Yeah, I know, I'm probably going to get some serious scowls and complaints from the adult coloring world, but I just don't get it. Do these people know about Netflix? iPods? Libraries?

As if this whole thing wasn't disturbing enough, I was casually perusing my Face Book wall the other day and I happened to stumble across this:

Instead of paint swatches, you just need Crayola's box of 96!

(Actually, it wasn't this same exact thing but it's similar enough that you get the idea.)

What's this, you may ask? It's adult coloring wallpaper. Yes, you read that right. It's walls that you can color on. You know, the same thing you just yelled at little Amy for doing the other day? Generations of parents have taught their kids to color on paper and NOT the walls, only to grow a generation that creates wall to draw on.

Call me lazy, but I like my wallpaper already colored on. By professional designer type people. Ok, that's actually a total lie, I don't like wallpaper at all. But if I did get a rare form of amnesia that made me forget prior decorating preferences and I all of a sudden had a hankering for some wallpaper to be put up in my house, it wouldn't be the kind I had to color. I'd probably look through a sample book of swatches with pretty colors, designs, and textures that people (who were paid to do this job) came up with from their super creative, totally not sleep deprived or brain dead from too many episodes of Sponge Bob brains. Then I'd probably have to pay someone to come put it up in my house because how the hell can I get that on straight and not look like a drunken monkey did it?

Hopefully I don't develop that rare form of amnesia.

So if you're looking for an awesome new hobby, take up sky diving. Kidding. That sounds dangerous. Pick up an adult coloring book. I don't know where you'd buy them. But someone should know. And get some new crayons. It's hard to color inside the lines with those broken ones.