OKL, WTF?

I wondered what would get me back on the blogging wagon. 

I never expected it would be a metal tray with a pig on it.

Specifically, THIS tray:

One Kings Lane is offering it for $22, representing a $23 markdown from a $45 original sticker price.  It looked . . . familiar.  Like, maybe, I had seen it at Target?  NOT for $45, or even for $22?  So I Googled "Barbeque Heaven Tray."  Nope, didn't see at Target - Sur La Table.  For an original sticker price of $39.95, now marked down to . . . $9.99.

Whoa.  I LOVE OKL.  I buy stuff from OKL.  Along with designer baby blankets, throw pillows and personalized address stamps, I purchased the concept that, when engaging in e-commerce with OKL, I was getting designer home decor at markdowns equivalent to Home Goods markdowns.  Like, in my mind, OKL was to online storefronts what Home Goods is to brick-and-mortar:  the final resting place for overlooked quality bric-a-brac (well, the final resting place before my casa, or yours).  The "Island of Misfit Poufs and Picture Frames," if you will - all priced appropriately. 

I now feel sorta compelled to Google each and every item before purchasing, to see if some other online retailer has beaten OKL to the final clearance bush.  (Note:  OKL does have a clearance "aisle" - "Downstairs at One Kings Lane" - but Pig Tray hasn't sifted down to that level yet.  Although, apparently, it has over at Sur La Table.)

I looked to see if other retailers had Pig Tray.  Nope.  Well, someone's trying to sell one on ebay for full freight.  And an animal rights activist has featured it on a "Portrayals of Animal Exploitation" page on about.com.  Maybe that's why Sur La Table decided to fire-sell it - it's backing away from a political poop-storm.  Oh, wait - Sur La Table sells six different kinds of meat pounders and tenderizers.

Withdrawn.

By the way, I never had any interest in purchasing Pig Tray.  Did you see that, animal activists?  I do not and will not support pig murder through the purchase of whimsical metal serving pieces.  Primarily because I haven't done "country cute" since the late nineties.  And I don't have that much red in my decor.  Whatever.  The ends are more important than the means.

No, Pig Tray just caught my eye because it, maybe, looked like something that I saw at Target.  And I decided to do some checking, because I needed a break from digesting scholarly treatises on the thrilling topic of Section 101(j) of the Pension Protection Act of 2006.  (Okay, that was sarcasm, but actually Section 101(j) makes my blood boil in a ridiculously geeky transactional lawyer kinda way.  Stupid, misguided law.  But that's for another post.)

And now I am disillusioned.

But I am, also, back to blogging.  Maybe.