A dark end table sported a huge light-brown fleck that oozed and dribbled out in a kind of sickly sunburst design. On this table, and in various other places throughout the room, sat Mom’s snake plants, flecked by Nature herself. The kitchen linoleum had flecks, as did the Bakelite countertop. Even my corduroys and sweaters had flecks: stipples and dabs of off-color wool, as if the sheep responsible had had a rash. I hated flecks. They were itchy.
We had not yet, however, reached the pinnacle of fleckdom. One day when I was about 8 years old, Mom announced: "Guess what? We’re gonna spray-paint the furniture in your bedroom."
I had to speak up. "If it’s pink, I’m moving." Mom said: "Let me know if you need help packing."
The name of the base hue was Caucasian Flesh. For days, Mom and Dad, surrounded by a sea of New York Posts, daubed away with their brushes, undercoating everything. When they were done, the furniture looked alive, like something hauled straight out of a bad sci-fi movie: The Invasion of the Bedroom Set.
Our collection of nonmatching items told the history of bad taste in furnishings. But none of the pieces escaped my parents’ Urban Uglification project. A sturdy mahogany dresser became an immense living blob, a scary creature with brass handles for eyes. A small chestnut dresser with Art Deco bookcase wings turned into an organic flying hulk. An enormous mirror frame was transmogrified into a pair of monstrous lips around a reflective, gaping mouth. My ratty old toy box was animated into a rectangular troll that had eaten all of my favorite possessions. Two delicate night tables that would not have looked out of place in the sewing room of a 17th-century French castle suddenly seemed to be manufactured out of cotton candy.
"Yuck!" I screamed. "The whole room is pink. How can I bring my friends in here? They’ll think I’m a girl."
"Believe me, when we’re done, your friends will be jealous," Dad said.
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