Sauder Laurel Canyon Trestle Bar with Stool, Espresso

Desk Jockey Al writes:

Oh, Sauder. How could you do this to us? At first we thought you were a company that Got It, and then our confidence was horrifically shaken by that damn armoire. Then as I searched for more of your desks on OfficeMax's website, I came across this. Dammit, Sauder, I can't take it! First you're good, then you're horrifically bad, then you're bad again! I just can't deal with this, but yet I keep on coming back, again and again!

I mean, take a look. This little ensemble describes itself as having a "large and spacious" workspace, along with a nice convenient pencil drawer. I dunno, that thing doesn't look very large and spacious to me (though I'm assured it's around 4 feet wide). At first I wasn't even going to consider this a desk- it looks more like a TV dinner tray- but then my eyes fixated on the price. $250. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Compare that price to the Fairview, one of the better desks we've reviewed. Would you pay $250 for this?

It's boring. It's small. The fact that it comes with a stool is inconsequential, as the stool looks less like someplace you'd sit and more like a tool used by the Spanish Inquisition. Torquemada invented this desk to punish heretical writers. "You shall sit here, and write 'I will not spread heresy' a thousand times, unless you confess!" "No! Not the Sauder Laurel Canyon Trestle Bar with Stool! I confess!"

Desk Jockey Daniel writes:

You don't buy this desk, at least... not with money. Rather, this desk is given to you by the one-eyed warden of the Vietmanese POW camp you're living in after you betray the escape plans of your fellow emaciated pilots. So what if those jerks stop tapping messages to you in morse code? You've got a desk!

This desk is so tiny and unimportant that you would only be able to do tiny and unimportant things at it. "Oh, I need to add that new pizza place to my address book." "Oh, I need to comb the sand in my desktop zen garden." "Oh, I need to add another pin to my voodoo doll of Shia Labeouf." It's really only in the room as an ornament, like a suit of armor. A lame suit of armor.

Machismo

DJAl: Besides the fact that you should be shot for spending that much money on what amounts to a few scraps of wood, it's hard to have any sort of power when you can't fit on the seat that comes with it. I mean, look at the design of that stool. And no back to it... ugh. Bad posture can't be good for the machismo. -1-

DJDaniel: Here comes Dr. Tran! He's a REAL doctor! -2-

Timelessness

DJAl: I can actually see this lasting a long time, come to think of it. Much like the OFM-66 before it, it can handle a wide variety of roles that are unrelated to actually being used as a desk. The difference is that it's not as horrifically ugly, so I'd be more willing to keep it around the house as a $250 lightstand. -5-

DJDaniel: Great Grandpa found this in a Japanese tunnel on Iwo Jima. He threw away all the Shinto shrine stuff and used it to display the sword he found in a Japanese stomache on Iwo Jima. -4-

Verve

DJAl: This is boring, boring, boring. At least they attempt to make the chair look somewhat interesting, even though it ends up in direct defiance of that pesky little thing called "ergonomics". -2-

DJDaniel: On the contrary, the chair is very ergonomically designed. You cat will take one look at it and think, "Oh good, an elevated bed. It even comes with a platform from which to yell at bugs on the ceiling!" -4-

FINAL SCORE = 3/10

Usually it would be Farley's job to fall over and crush furnature, but this one we can leave to Spade.