more like master bater
September 28, 2002, 10:53 am

Crap.

That's exactly how I think our new bar looks.

Like crap.

When the guy started building it, I had visions of a gorgeous oak finish, glass tops, stainless steel sink glinting behind our 44" tall masterpiece. A place for all our friends to mingle, eat, and imbibe tasty beverages.

What we have in our 1800 sq. foot basement is a monstrousity of plywood with a sheen of modge podge, a bathroom vanity, and crooked shelves that will never support the weight of the plethora of bottles we have to store. Phooey.

When you pay someone $4,000 to build something, you expect it to come out gorgeous. You expect it to be worthy of "BAR QUARTERLY" or some other type of bar-type publication. You never expect to look as though all of your friends randomly decided to get drunk and build you a bar out of scraps of plywood.

Amazingly enough, the rough-in of the bar looked much better than it does now. AND THE TOP ISN'T EVEN ON! Our crown molding is unexplicably chipped in several places, along with serious dents and scrapes in our 10 month old walls.

I am usually the first person in my family to stay mum about bad service, bad products, and the like. I tend to be more sensitive to people's feelings or work situations, but I'm pissed. I want to rail against this guy and make him feel so bad that he'll fix me the nicest bar on the East Coast to rival anything one would see on MTV's Cribs. I feel cheated. I wanted this to be the centerpiece of the Biensoul Compound Party Central Atmosphere. Instead, I'd be embarrassed to show it off.

When I was 8, my sister got a Play-Doh play set. I think it was the gardening set, or whatever. It only came with three of the twelve things that was supposed to come with.

In stilted cursive (as I was still learning it), I wrote a professional letter to the good people of Play-Doh, requesting the rest of the contents be given to my sister as was her due.

Three months later a package arrived, containing a small, plastic spatula. A duplicate of one she already had. None of the noodle makers or the petal shapers or whatever else she had been denied due to faulty packaging. I felt then as I felt now: helpless to make a difference. Tried as I did, "the man" (laziness and indifference) would always win out.

Master Craftsman, my ass.