Dining for Decency

We spent the better part of today looking at dining tables, a repeat of yesterday’s endeavors. We’ve found a few table/chair combinations we like, but we’re not quite ready to bite the bullet. Though the pursuit of a new dining table was not a high priority in months past, it has become modestly more urgent because we’ve agreed to participate in a “dinner for eight” group for which we will host one event. Our dining table today comfortably accommodates four and, if pushed, will handle six. But eight requires us to employ card tables and plastic folding chairs. While there’s nothing wrong with that, we’ve decided we really want a larger table that will make hosting larger groups easier and, therefore, more frequent and more likely.

Our search has educated us about dining tables. Tables for six or eight are far less common than smaller tables. And quality comes at a price; a significant price. We saw a custom-made table today, whose trestle base was crafted out of hand-cut, shaped, and welded steel sheet and pipes, priced at $3600. The top consisted of several pieces of salvaged three by six inch pine, pieced together with interlocking wooden “locks.” The eight chairs suggested to go with it were around $380 each. Fortunately, we were not enamored of the top, though we marveled at the workmanship involved in creating it.

The dining sets consisting of a table and eight chairs, priced at $800 or less for the set, seemed ready to disintegrate before our eyes. Though they were pretty, I could see how they could be priced so low. The tabletops were made of wood veneer—the thickness of a layer of human skin—stretched over a base constructed of sawdust, glue, and pointless hope. I am relatively sure the moisture in a single human breath would be the table’s undoing.

This entire process has made me acutely aware of the fact that I enjoy privilege and good fortune of enormous consequence. Most people on this earth do not have even a remote hope (nor, perhaps, the desire) to buy a dining set that costs so much; even the lowest cost ones. And most would probably not be so persnickety about the quality, or lack thereof, in a dining set. Were I a better man, I would donate the entire amount we’re contemplating on spending on a dining table to a charity that helps people in desperate need. My rejection of that notion provides evidence of my hypocrisy. The fact that I am not alone in speaking out of both sides of my mouth is of no comfort. I’ve seriously considered (in years long past) living the life of an ascetic; guilt drives my conscience, but not my actions, I’m afraid.

I wonder; if I were to invite our dinner for eight guests over, serving them on card tables and plastic chairs, would asking them for contributions to organizations engaged in human decency be seen as crass? Or would serving gruel and old lettuce to our dinner for eight, as a means of calling attention to world hunger, be seen as over the top shaming? Probably. And there’s no reason to shame good people for behaving as normal people do.

I’ve gone and done it. I’ve twisted myself into a knot that has no known solutions for untying it.

About John Swinburn

"Love not what you are but what you may become."― Miguel de Cervantes
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