Is there anything more depressing than birch veneer?

I tried to go buy a desk today, from a nice korean young man who was selling it on craigslist. I need it to fit in a certain space, so it has to be small enough but big enough for my laptop and a remote keyboard. He had a darling junior size rolltop desk which I loved but was too shallow to open the laptop on and be able to tilt it back all the way. It also had a pullout shelf but not in front where a keyboard would be, but on the side above the drawers. Basically it was a lovely desk where one could dip ones quill in ink and pen a love letter by candle light. Or sit down and write checks, stuff envelopes, or draw even! Very humane. Unfortunately, we dont DO any of those things anymore. Desks arent FOR writing anymore. Who draws? Who needs checks when you have direct deposit and automatic bill payer? So I couldnt buy the adorable, walnut mini roll top desk because I couldnt use it for my sterile antiromantic, robotic life. So, in direct contrast to the nice man's lovely apartment and warm pencil worn desk, we went to Ikea, which is Swedish for birch veneer. Instead of showing the items and merchandising them so that you can see something, like it, and purchase it, they set up all these fake rooms, of all parts of a house so that you can see how you should put the one item that you might need together with a bunch of other items that you dont and make your house look cheap and European. Hurray. But they dont look like rooms, theyre like a childs fake smile on picture day; the teeth are bared, the lips are curled away but there is no mirth, no humor, no smile in the eyes. Just the reflection of the flash and a regrettable outfit. So, all the desks are ugly, all of them. And they are made out of pressboard, which is like wood dandruff glued together with formaldehyde. But, theyve got "clean lines!" And theyre all available in the ever popular Birch Veneer. THere is something about a strip of that wood grain, blond colored plastic, cracking, or peeling away, to reveal that weird compressed glue texture underneath that is totally devastating. So depressing. Like, see? Did you convince yourself this was wood? Ha! Wood Dandruff!! So I bought it in shiny white. Its hideous. It is, but at least it knows it is, and looks like the crap that it is. Not masquerading as poor old besotted birch, which no one outside of adirondack country really makes furniture out of anyway, which is probaby why its still extant, and insulted by Ikea.
I havent put it together yet. Should be rich.