Finally the anticipated event of the day – a product rep meeting!

I was certain that I had seen all the product offerings a rep could offer – but hey, I was willing to fake it. After all, who doesn’t want to steal away from their desk for half an hour, gossip about what designer left firm A to go to firm B and eat chocolate confections imported from Belgium? Oh, I almost forgot – and discover the latest “it” product.

Kirei. Manufactured by Kirei USA. Image courtesy of Inhabitat.

It takes a lot to get me excited about a new product these days, so when Whitney, our perfectly coiffed product rep, pulled you out of her little black bag and said “Meet Kirei” – I wasn’t sure what to make of you.

“You’re so ugly – you’re cute!” I blurted out.

Yes, that would be the same endearing “ugly-cute” thing that you find sitting in the local animal shelter when a Great Dane hooks up with a Maltese. And like a puppy, I found you quite adorable and absolutely irresistible. Perhaps you wouldn’t be man’s best friend; but maybe you could be mine?

I picked you up and started rubbing you, only to find that you were quite smooth considering all of your visible markings and color variations. It was the sum of all these little naturally occurring imperfections that made you truly endearing. As I was coddling you, Whitney mentioned that you were an engineered panel product constructed from the stalks of the sorghum plant. Apparently, sorghum is a rapidly renewable and reclaimed agricultural fiber that can help our projects gain credit towards LEED Certification. Fabulous! You have better breeding than a pound pup.

“Whitney . . . just out of curiosity, what are the origins of the name Kirei?”

“Oh . . .Kirei is a Japanese word whose translation embodies the qualities of ‘Clean’ and ‘Beautiful’”

“How contradictory – yet fitting. Consider yourself adopted Kirei!”

Another fine adoption brought to you by the People’s Republic of China.