The desk

There's this desk. It's Tom's childhood desk. I guess the desk followed him to CA because it was unmistakably in his room when he and Frank roomed together at Shoreline and to our condo and it made its 100-lbs. (I'm guessing) of pressed wood here to the house.

After a number of spring cleanings, garage sales and now even a move, it has survived in our household all this time. Well, almost. It also came with a hutch, a hutch so heavy that years after moving day, some of Tom's guy friends still complained of its weight. But we lost the hutch somewhat inadvertently when we left it in the lower garage at the condo and someone "helped themselves" to it.

The desk has never won its way into my heart. It's an odd shape (think rectangle with one corner cut off), has one drawer (not terribly functional) and it's not the prettiest (square legs with white melamine like veneer and silver braces/brackets). It was always on my list to get rid off but we didn't always have a good reason to get rid of it.

The desk also has history. Not the kind of history as in Tom has any emotional attachment with his childhood desk because he said he didn't. But history, as in, I think we might have gotten in trouble with Tom's mom over the desk a while ago. The details are all blurry now but sometime in the past, Dennis had a conversation with Mom about these desks (Dennis has one too, dark brown wood veneer) and whether to keep them. In a nutshell, she doesn't want to keep the desks herself in their house, but she wants Tom and Dennis to want to keep these desks. And the thought of actually getting rid of them is borderline disrespectful to her. So then the desk became a conflict of her wishes and mine, designwise.

Years ago I would have rolled my eyeballs and said, too bad, we're not keeping the desk. No, not would have, I DID roll my eyeballs and said we're not keeping the desk. But now that the desk that kept following us around is finally loaded in the minivan ready to be donated (right before Tom's parents visit; we're hoping his mom has already forgotten about the desk), I feel kind of bad for, of all things, the desk itself. As if some inanimate object has feelings, I feel bad that all these years it was the symbol of bad design to me and the unfortunate victim of a "not in my house" type of attitude. Like I never gave it a fair chance. But then I started thinking like a mom and wondered how I'd feel about when Tobey and Eli reject my choices for their furniture. Could the ugly desk actually be useful when Tobey gets to school age? Do I have a new desk style in mind for my kids? (I'm sure I will when it's time to shop.) Is it really that hideous? Yes, on all counts. But even so, I still have a little guilt.

I feel a bit insane for saying this, but I think I might miss that little desk.

It had served us well in the past. It was our computer desk for a while. It was our "storage table" for extra baby things in Tobey's room for a while. It was most recently our easy storage in our garage. But now, I hope it can be someone's true desk again. Someone who will appreciate it for what it really is.