Summary: <p>Japanese furniture, flooring, and other things starting with F. Big question of the episode: Can you replace pleather with transparent tape?</p> <p><strong>Transcript</strong></p> <p>K: So, lately I’ve been thinking about furniture in Japan.</p> <p>C: That is not what tabling the discussion means.</p> <p>K: (laughs) Okay, I don’t know if that one’s funny or a surprise. What do you think?</p> <p>C: I think it’s funny.</p> <p>K: I think it was more of surprise with a ridiculous surprise.</p> <p>C: Yeah?</p> <p>K: Yeah. Because I often laugh when you say something ridiculous. (laughs)</p> <p>C: Which is also funny.</p> <p>K: Ridiculously funny. You’re ridiculously funny. I think we can both agree on that.</p> <p>C: Thank you. Yes.</p> <p>K: So, I’ve ben thinking a lot about furniture because 1) I need a new chair at the office, and I’ve been putting it off, but it sheds so horribly, and I feel just like oh my gosh, everyone must think I am so just hella ghetto because I have cello tape, scotch tape, on pieces of the chair that are shedding because it’s vegan leather.</p> <p>C: It’s pleather.</p> <p>K: Yeah. I call it pleather, but people like vegan leat- blegh, vegan leather better than saying it’s pleather. It’s plastic. It’s a thin film of plastic over fabric that gives it a leather look. And so… for me, I need to get a new chair, but instead of going and getting a new chair, I’m just putting tape where the pleather’s starting to fade. And in the United States, I would’ve used black electric tape, but I can’t find any black electric tape here, so I’m using clear scotch. Just plain old scotch tape.</p> <p>C: Okay, so not even three minutes in, I have a digression this time. Usually it’s you starting them. You’re usually the one that falls for digression, but</p> <p>K: What?</p> <p>C: Yeah. It reminds me of when your bag fell apart in the Tokyo airport. Your pleather bag.</p> <p>K: (laughs) That was horrible.</p> <p>C: It was horrible.</p> <p>K: It just happened all of a sudden, too. And I loved that bag.</p> <p>C: But you hadn’t used it in a while. It had been in the closet. And we were taking a trip, so you grabbed it, you were like “this is going to be my carry-on.” </p> <p>K: Yeah.</p> <p>C: And then it just started just shedding. It was like… it was like the old Peanuts cartoon. Just pig-pen levels of like stuff just flying off of it.</p> <p>K: Yes. I was like “what is this?” Because it was just falling everywhere.</p> <p>C: Just a rubbery black dust was covering everything in your bag.</p> <p>K: Yes. </p> <p>C: So we ended up buying your current bag</p> <p>K: It’s actually red. </p> <p>C: Right. But the outside was red, but there were black parts too because underneath the</p> <p>K: Yeah it was striped and everything. Yeah.</p> <p>C: So, we ended up buying your current bag at the Tokyo airport out of necessity because that bag was like a biohazard.</p> <p>K: Yeah. And so I wonder if I should just scrub the pleather off of it because it’s still a good chair in all other respects.</p> <p>C: I don’t know if there’d be anything left. I think what you’re looking for is reupholster it. Should you reupholster it.</p> <p>K: No. I’m saying what I mean. I mean just peeling it off. </p> <p>C: Horrified look.</p> <p>K: Yeah. I just want to peel it off, but right now I’m just using scotch tape because I was like “what is this black crap all over my floor?” Like every time I sit down, there’s black crap all over my office floor. So, Japan doesn’t really sell leather. It sells like leather belts, but it doesn’t – it’s not big on leather.</p> <p>C: Yeah. For furniture and such.</p> <p>K: Yeah.</p> <p>C: I think because the moisture properties because everything in Japan – home furnishing-wise – seems designed to deal with either your apartment being too humid or too dry. There’s no happy middle. It’s</p>
