Can you color match this?

As with most paint departments ours can color match.  For those of you who don't know, that means a customer can bring in something and we can approximate the same color in paint.  Notice I say 'approximate.'  Color matching is not a 100% guarantee, most of the times it's close, practically spot on, and other times it's a completely different color.  What's even more amazing are the things people bring into have color matched, quite often without understanding there are limitations.  We don't color match cloth because most fabric has different colored threads.  You may not see them, but the machine we use to color match does.  People don't always understand this.  Sometimes they demand that you color match the red curtain they brought in... and the end result is purple paint, and they get angry and leave the paint at the desk.

I find it interesting that many people fail to realize that the spectro-photometer doesn't read through dirt.  They bring in all sorts of crap that hasn't been cleaned in years.  You have no idea how often I want to ask "shall I color match that stain?" or "should I use this smudgy gray spot, it looks to be the cleanest."

We're heading into exterior paint season which means they'll be bringing in boards, and planks, and pieces of rotted wood.  That's right, rotted wood which hasn't been painted in 15 years.

Or they'll say "I need that color blue."  In fact, it's already begun.  Yesterday I had a burly gentleman with little red rubber bands in his beard come to the desk with a piece of fencing.  At one point it had been painted white, but that was a long time ago, before it became covered with green algae.  And of course he asked "can you color match this?"