Mellow Yellow

When we bought our condo, the seller was very well organized and generous and left for us labeled paint cans so we knew which paint went with which room.  We appreciated this efficient way for doing touch-ups, as needed.  Unlike the other paint, the creamy yellow-colored paint used for the entire lower level of our home was not in its original can.  Instead, it was housed in a juice bottle with a screw-top lid.  We had no information as to the paint manufacturer or the formula for that particular color.  It didn't matter at the time because it was labeled and we'd simply use it for touch-ups.  A decade had passed and we still had the juice bottle -- now holding thick, congealed, unusable paint.  So, I trotted to a local paint store recently to see if it was even remotely possible to get new paint that matched.  There, I learned about the true expertise needed for creating a matching paint.  The woman at the counter skillfully examined the paint in the juice bottle, dabbed a little on a sheet of paper, dried it and started the process of matching it.  To my untrained eye, her work was yielding amazing results, but she was still not content.  "It needs more red," she declared, although for the life of me, I couldn't see that more red was needed.  Thanks to her work, what has resulted is the closest match we could possibly hope for.  I think I'll call it Mellow Yellow.