When looks can be deceiving

I had a little time to kill at lunchtime today, so I popped into the sport shops in town on the off-chance that there were any good bargains to be had. There weren't really, but I came across something that absolutely astounded me.

I was looking at the bats on display in JJB Sports, most of which were pretty god-awful it has to be said. There was one Kookaburra that grabbed my attention though, as it just seemed to stand out somehow. Fairly quickly it dawned on me that the bat had not been bleached, but was instead painted white on the back and sides, with the face exposed. Now why, I asked myself, would you want a bat where the willow was hidden? And if you wanted to hide poor willow, why leave the most saleable part - the face - on display?

So then I had a good look at the face. It had tape down either side to guard the edges, but in between it looked like the best piece of willow I'd ever seen. Good colour, and lots of ruler-straight grains - probably ten or more evenly spaced grains - and hardly any flaws. Now this perplexed me even more - if this piece of willow was so good, why on Earth did they feel the need to hide 2/3rds of it? Something didn't smell quite right.

Then a split-second later it hit me - This wasn't an excellent piece of willow after all, this was a shitty piece of willow with a PHOTO of an excellent piece of willow stuck on top!!!

So not only were you totally unable to see any part of the blade's surface whatsoever, if you didn't look closely you were given a wholly misleading impression as to what you were buying. Frankly, I would have found it laughable if I wasn't quite so disgusted. To bleach a bat is one thing, to cover it in cloth another. At least those two ways of hiding a bat's flaws are fairly transparent and honest. But to stick a photo on it? That's just way too much - it'd be like Susan Boyle going around wearing a Kate Moss face mask.