I flipped through the weekend newspaper this morning until I came to my favorite feature, the shopping page. It shows thumbnail pictures with short descriptions of new stuff that has reached the local stores and can be had for a price. Two things caught my eye: a black plywood – plywood! – chair for 18,000 shekels and a cup and saucer for over 400 shekels.
Excuse me? Can I have read this rightly? In this time of economic melt-down complete with weeping and gnashing of teeth, what space alien from the planet Bizarro would charge these prices for these entirely common objects? And who would buy them?
Let me say plainly: I have nothing against rich people. If they want to fork over large sums of money on an opulent life style, I wish them joy. I just resent seeing them exploited by anyone who would take such sums for plywood. On the other hand, it strikes me that I could be missing the boat. I could make a papier mache table to go with the chair and sell that for, I don't know, 20,000 shekels. I could be sitting on a gold mine.
Clearly, I've been on the kibbutz too long. Simple life, simple house. Carefree. I'm out of touch with the fashionable world. Economic crisis or no, life must go on and people must be chic. I just want to know when plywood became chic. What's next, MDF Nouveau?
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