Tuesday, December 13, 2005

First You Break It, Then We'll Buy It 

Came home yesterday to a new hardwood computer cabinet, finally delivered sans accompanying loftbed for the three-year-old, as the latter (bed, not kid) appears to be on order indefinitely.

Cabinet -- a sort of pretend-it's-a-display-case model, with doors that hide the tech away for visitors and kidfriendliness -- looks great, especially next to the tree.

Looking up, though, I was initially struck by what appeared to be two suspiciously identical scratches, one on each side of the upper panel.

Oh, don't worry, says the spouse. Like much of the furniture we've seen over the past few months, it comes pre-distressed.

Which brings up an interesting image, to say the least: it would appear that all across the cabinet-making and furniture-building industries are a series of employees whose sole purpose in life is to mark up and mar the work that their coworkers have just painstakingly finished building and staining. Carefully and with uniformity, to be sure, but still: what kind of culture is this when immediate off-the-line pre-destruction is not only desirable, but - in many cases - costs extra?

posted by boyhowdy | 10:46 PM |

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