“Distressed”

I’ve written before that the thing I most wish I’d thought of is carbon offsets.  Modern-day indulgences for chronically guilt-ridden tree-hugging dirt-munching druids?  Oh, hell yes.  Buy nine and get the tenth free.  Do it now, before I stomp this baby bunny rabbit to death and bury it in a Styrofoam cooler packed with Freon in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

I think the runner-up, though, is “distressed” merchandise.  You are familiar with such, I trust.  It’s a common furniture and clothing design motif, in which it appears that a new item has been dropped off the back of a truck, dusted off, and marked up 50%.  Whoever came up with that was a genius.

“Hal, this armoire’s beat all to shit.  We’re gonna have to mark it way down.”

“Oh no, Mike.  It’s, uh…’distressed.’  We’ll mark it way up!”

Transit damage?  No problem.  It’s distressed.  Shopworn?  Distressed.  Spotty QC at the overseas factory?  Distressed, grasshopper.

This stuff all seems so devastatingly simple after it’s already thought up.

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