Who wouldn’t be distressed after beating

WHAT’S SO FUNNY

The bathroom cabinets had just been installed and the guy was

leaving. My wife had overseen the whole deal; I hadn’t participated

except to offer encouragement, and support, you know, but I was home

and she wasn’t and the guy was done and wanted me to sign for the

cabinets, so I did.

As he was leaving I went in and looked at them. They seemed fine,

except that I noticed some tiny holes and dents in the doors. I

hurried out after the guy and caught him in the driveway.

“It looks good, except the doors have these little dings in them,”

I told him.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s the style.”

For a moment I thought, “He’s an impostor.” But no ... why would

anyone pose as a cabinet guy?

“That’s the style,” he said. “It’s distressed.”

I asked him to wait while I called Patti Jo. I still thought he

might be trying to slip us the green wienie. But she confirmed it.

It’s the style.

I went back and looked at the doors again. Those little dents did

lend a kind of instant authenticity. There was even some simulated

dirt on the trim under the mirror. This is called stain -- well, it

is stain. It doesn’t come off with a Kleenex.

The idea of distress, as I understand it, is that you want your

brand-new item to have a weathered look -- like new jeans sold with a

slit in the knee. I’m told that to get this particular effect on a

bathroom cabinet, you whip it with a chain, which, you’ll agree,

would age it.

Not everyone has heard about the style, though. One of the cabinet

guys told Patti Jo that the last time they installed distressed

cabinets, the wife was delighted but the husband followed them out to

the driveway, same as me.

Men in general will resist this fashion trend, I think. They’ve

been brought up to throw a fit about damaged goods. And what if the

trend spreads to other areas? No man wants to see his new Porsche

roll off the line with pockmarks all over it and be told, “That’s the

style.” No, men will fight it.

My own feeling is that if Patty Jo wants to see the true

distressed style all she has to do is look at me because I’ve

perfected it, head to toe. I didn’t just whip it up, either -- I’ve

built it over decades. You could take a younger man, stand him up

next to me, whack at him with a chain and hope for the best, but you

wouldn’t get my look any time soon.

I guess the oddest aspect of this whole episode is that I’m

starting to like the new ambience of our bathroom. Maybe it’s because

it’s soothing to go in there and look at the cabinets and notice that

we match.

* SHERWOOD KIRALY is a Laguna Beach resident. He has written four

novels, three of which were critically acclaimed.