Do You Appreciate Wood?

In the season finale, a large controversy is the appreciation of wood. Larry gets blamed for a ring stain that stemmed from a forgotten cup of coffee on one of his colleagues coffee tables. It sparked a huge debate on the issue of appreciating wood and using coasters as a way to prevent stains. Apparently this may come more naturally to some rather than others.

I liked this controversy, because it's not something you really do think about. Does the carelessness of someone to place a cup on wood mark a simple non-appreciation of wood? Or is it just a common mistake?

I have to say for myself, I don't know what bothers me more: the look of stained wood from a cup or someone nagging me to use a coaster. One looks awful and one just sounds awful. You already know the look, it's just unappealing, unsightly, really. You take a mental note, "Damn. Couldn't that just have been avoided? It would look so much nicer." But then on the other hand, you can hear it. The, "Uh Uh Uh...get a coaster!" It's kind of infuriating. A tip off that someone really is just monitoring your every move. A whole other meaning to a Coast Guard.

Maybe we all just need to learn to use coasters. I, myself, have never really been too big of a fan of them. Now a days you can get all different kinds that match the setting of the room. But something about them just throw off the atmosphere in my eyes. Its like the runner that my dad used to have in our dining room. A long, thin, rug he placed on top of the expensive oriental rug in the dining room. It covered the small space that was most walked on from the dining room to the kitchen. It was his way of making sure that one spot of the rug didn't wear as fast as the rest of it, that by doing this it would prevent, in his eyes, unsightly mark ups. I guess it makes sense, but don't we have these homes to live in? Don't we buy this furniture to display? Why are we constantly covering things up? To prove we have a kept home?

It is all about the appearance, though. Making sure the things we purchase and fill our homes with get preserved so they don't become completely run down in five years time and wind up having to be replaced. So would not doing everything you can to preserve these things, such as using coasters, be a form of disrespect and non-appreciation? After really thinking about this...I would have to agree.