This cabinet is a perfect metaphor for our house. We found the cabinet in our local charity shop. It was old, relatively cheap, and it looked decent. There were a few issues, but nothing that required too much work. Or so we thought. When I started cleaning it, I discovered that the rear panel was loose because, apparently, someone had tried to pry it open using brute force (vandals!) and torn it from the attaching clips. The veneer on the right side of the cabinet is chipping away at an alarming rate, and I need to get wood filler to fix that before the problem gets worse. One of the shelves has visible stains that I’d like to mask. So now I also need to get special oil for that. In other words, as with our house, I need to put some work into the cabinet before I can use it. On the bright side, I felt unexpected pleasure working on the cabinet. I guess I can see myself in it: we’re both old and worse for wear. But with a little bit of TLC, there is still useful life left in us.