As Promised
Dec. 31st, 2004 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pinksoniaWell as promised here are two of my papers for expository writing. It took so long because I needed to figure out how to do a cut tage, but I think I can do it now.
Another "Nine Beginnings"
1. Why don't you write?
I'm writing this paper as an assignment in an expository writing class. We are supposed to model Margaret Atwood's essay "Nine Beginnings," in which she tries to answer the question, "Why do you write?" This is a fine question for Margaret Atwood because she is, in fact, a writer. I am not. I don't even like to write. My university has suckered me into writing by requiring a writing intensive course. Sure, they try to make it sound less terrifying, discussing the way at least one class in every major can be offered as a writing intensive. Are those classes ever offered? No. I tried to take an anthropology class as a writing intensive and was told that it didn't count anymore because a graduate student was teaching. Now, with my graduation looming, I've realized the truth: I have to take the English department writing class. That involves writing this essay, so here I go.
2. Why don't you write?
In September of 1988, I entered Mrs. Hinson's first grade class at Exton Elementary School in Exton, Pennsylvania. Previously I had attended Malvern Montessori, also in Pennsylvania, because they offered full-day pre-school and kindergarden classes and both of my parents worked. The Montessori method revolves around the idea that children should direct their own education in order to pursue their interests. The teacher will briefly introduce concepts, then let the students pursue whichever activity most inspires them. If a child has something they particularly want to learn, they need only to ask the teacher and materials will be provided. At some point during pre-school I asked to be in the group learning to read. With this background, I started first grade. Naturally, I was ahead of most of the other students in reading ability. I also had an established perfectionistic streak, which would become central to my dislike of writing.
3. Why don't you write?
People often say that reading makes you a better writer. For me, reading made me a much worse writer, or at least, a very frustrated writer who ended up hating the idea of writing. Regardless of what I was doing, I wanted to be the best. I still do. Naturally, when I was told that we would spend time writing stories for a while every day after lunch, the models in my head for these stories were Treasure Island, Anne of Green Gables, Black Beauty, The Wizard of Oz and other classics children's literature. Yet somehow, my tales about cats going trick-or-treating or what ever it was that I happened to be writing, never turned out quite right. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't yet have the ability to fix it. I was a first grader who believed she should write like a professional, and was broken-hearted when that didn't happen. Nevertheless, every day after Lunch and Recess I would dutifully take out my portfolio and try to complete the week's writing assignment. I couldn't. I refuse to turn in substandard work. I would think, and plan, and erase, trying in vain to produce a perfect story, but never reaching the end of even one. Eventually, Mrs. Hinson would say that I had to turn something in by the end of the week. At the appointed time, I would dutifully turn in two sets of papers with words on them. They weren't complete stories. I knew they weren't complete stories, but I would have needed an indefinite amount of time to make them complete. A week later, my papers would come back with comments like needs an ending! or good beginning, rushed ending, no middle! All of which I knew.
4. Why don't you write?
I am a singer. I am occasionally a musical theater actress. I do cross-stitch. Everyone needs a creative outlet, and these are mine. Other people have outlets that I know would never be right for me. I don't paint. I don't draw. I don't play an instrument. (I couldn't get the flute to make any noise and my piano lessons never got very far. In fact I seem directly , or indirectly, responsible for at least three teachers quitting.) I don't write. I don't feel the compulsion to write that many writers describe. I don't have words welling up and fighting to get to the surface. Writing doesn't make me happy; it doesn't make me complete.
5. Why don't you write?
I don't write because I have nothing to say.
6. Why don't you write?
Scratch that last answer. That was too easy, and incidentally not true. It's not that I don't have anything to say, it's that I'm not used to actually saying the things I have to say. I'm "the quiet one." That's just the way it is. Growing up, when I had a smart-ass answer to give in class, I mumbled it under my breath so no one but my friend Vicki heard. Vicki purposefully sat near me whenever possible to hear those comments. My brother, who is still in school, says anything that goes through his head. The main result is that he is known, while I slipped under the radar. Not that slipping under the radar is a bad thing. If no one notices, then your actions can't come back to haunt you.
Writing is incriminating. If something goes down on paper it's there forever, or at least a long while. Detective novels and police shows always talk about paper trails. Much of what we know of the past comes from what was written down: hieroglyphs from Egypt and the Mayan empire, Pepy's diary with the great fire of London, Magna Carta and Declarations of all sorts. If I mess up in writing it, will stick. Better not to write things down. Great, now I sound crazy.
7. Why don't you write?
Spelling counts. That has to be one of my least favorite phrases ever. If I can't write (and I can write I just chose (choose) not to) I can't spell even more. I heard somewhere that the microwave was voted the greatest invention of the twentieth century, but I think my vote whould (would) have gone to the spell-checker. For example, I like to add "e"'s to small words ending in "th", so that both and with turn into bothe and withe. The spell-checker corrects this little foible nicely.
In the fifth grade I rewrote the lyrics of the song, "On My Own" from the musical Les Miserables as if they were sung by Anne from Anne of Green Gables through Anne of the Island. Mr. Poskitt decided that it was absolutely wonderful and had to be read by all sorts of higher up people in the school district. I think he was just impressed that I used the word "fortnight" (which incidentally I'm on a campaign to reintroduce into American English) in a sentence. It was either that or the lyric, "he'll be gone, dead as a doornail." Regardless, I was offered a deal. If I would spend the hour devoted to spelling tests instead writing whatever I wanted in a composition book, I would never have take to another spelling test. I declined.
8. Why don't you write?
I'm sitting here thinking that I only have two sections left, which is good because I can't wait to be done. I'm also thinking that I still have two whole sections, which is bad because I don't know what I want to say in them. In Atwood's original essay, half of the sections are done in the second person. None of mine are. It seems like that means this essay is not such a good model, but the second person point of view is really hard to do. Reading the original essay, I also noticed that there are only really two sections that deal with the past, or more specifically, childhood. Almost all of mine do.
Then I'm thinking that it is 6:30 and I should be hungry, but I'm not. I should make myself some clam chowder because it's easy and comes in a can. I hope I can eat the whole can, since Lara left with the microwave, and I'm not sure reheating soup on the stove tomorrow will work. Then there is that fact that my clothes are in the dryer and the last time they didn't actually dry. I really should be down there watching so no one opens the door to check if the clothes are dry and then leaves it open until the time runs out. Watching laundry spin in the dryer is never a fun proposition, so I'm going to ignore that voice. I don't have another $1.50 in quarters, so if my clothes don't dry I will have to wear some damp clothing tomorrow. I need to be getting back on track.
9. Why don't you write?
For someone who doesn't write, I seem to do an awful lot of writing. There are the essays required for classes, which are pretty easy. I can just look up stuff in the library. I am the master of libraries. Who else would have parts of the Dewey Decimal System memorized? (Somehow I don't think that is something I should share with other people.) For the actual writing process, checking to make sure that I don't use the passive voice and start at least one sentence in each paragraph with a verb has proved to be enough to get a quality grade.
In addition to class work, there are the letters to England. Last year, during my Junior Year Abroad, I went to church at Gloucester Place Baptist, where the average age of the congregation is probably sixty-five. They were ecstatic to see someone under the age of forty attending services and even singing with the music group. All the little old ladies insisted on receiving my address before I came back to the states. Now, they send me letters. It would be rude not to write back.
Excuse me, I believe you have my Hotchkiss ...
A mission so clear
A purpose so unique
To put together what not so obviously fits
The necessary mend
A hopeful gesture
When our lives are strewn in pieces and bits
A simple "click"
A thoughtless touch
And worlds of difference are fraternized such
In green or red
The personality's the same
We expect little of ourselves-- of our documents too much
A piercing moment
A metal contract
Invasion of personal space to bend the rules
A cold-war moment
Opinions face to back
The most desperate of the office tools
Ode to a Stapler, by Hefzibah Koren
I've never seen the movie Office Space, but after the fifth or sixth person quoted the stapler line at me I began to wonder about the kind of person depicted in the movie? What makes an office supply lovable? Why do people become attached to certain kinds? Most importantly, why do we find this love amusing? I began addressing my query in the usual manner: I did a Google search. Looking up pens, I found that the top sites sold pens. Typing three hole punch, the same thing happened. Pencil Sharpener? Check. Erasers and highlighters seem to share their names with computer applications for sale. On the other hand, when I typed stapler into Google the top two sites led to fan pages for the stapler. Internet stapler lovers with no pressing paper attachment needs, may virtually use three different models of staplers to achieve that satisfying crunch sound. Feeling appropriately moved, they write poetry to the stapler; haiku and limericks are popular choices.
While I have a general love for office supplies like note pads with funky cover designs, and I find something satisfying about walking around a Staples or an Office Max, I had never thought much about the stapler. Sure, I remember having a certain pride in High School, that my paper was always stapled before I came to class. I didn't need to wait in line to use the stapler, instead I could hand my paper in directly. There were classrooms where the stapler had broken earlier in the year, and students without a home stapler, or possibly those that had finished their paper in the computer lab during study hall, were reduced to the lowly paper clip. (A Google search places the paper clip in the mid-range of beloved office supplies. It has no fan pages, but people are more interested in its history and inventor than they are in buying some.) Maybe the stapler does deserve a little love.
My searches had not really answered my question. Possibly, the history of the stapler could shed some light on this subject. As with any specialized field of interest, the aspiring staplerphile should become familiar with this fascinating machine. The history of paper fastening started in the 1200s, when someone decided that their assorted papers would be less likely to be lost if they were bound together in some way. A ribbon was passed through a hole in the top of each subsequent page and then fastened with a little sealing wax. Fastening methods involving string remained in vogue for centuries.
The royal court of Louis XV of France provided a leap forward: the first known stapling machine. Each staple used in this machine had to be hand made and inscribed with the insignia of the Royal Court. As time consuming as that endeavor would be, the person with this job must have been the original stapler lover, or possibly the original stapler loather. Individual staples made out of cast iron, sheet metal, and other materials continued to be used for the next two hundred years.
Finally, in the early part of the twentieth century, somebody became sick of losing their free floating staples in the bottom of the kitchen junk drawer and decided to put them together in strips. Called herringbone staples because of the small amount of space between each staple on the sheet, they were made out of a single piece of sheet metal. They came twenty-five staples to a strip and each strip was attached to another with a central bridge. In 1905, B. Jahn Mfg. Co, introduced a rear loading stapler which was effectively the machine we know today. It used herringbone staples, which are connected by a notoriously hard to break center spine. Workers needed to hit the stapler with a hammer in order to actually staple anything. This practice may well be the origin of the idea that if you punch down on a stapler it will work better. Since 1905 changes to the stapler have just been fine tuning.
That didn't really answer my question either. While the stapler is certainly an interesting machine I'm not sure it is really worship worthy. I have yet to be moved to write any poetry. Maybe those sort of feelings only come from the personal relationship that one has with a stapler. I've had repeated contact with two staplers over the course of my life. My first introduction to the world of staplers came from the black one that lives in our kitchen drawer, under the phone, with the pens and the note pads. This stapler bore a strong resemblance to the ones used in school. It was black while they were usually gray or faux wood, and it was an inch or two longer, but they all had the same industrial feel. I believe this stapler to be a later model Swingline. It looks like the Swingline #27, but has a narrower base.
Over the years I had many mini-staplers purchased on school supply shopping trips, hoping that they would stay in my pencil case and be ready to staple anything I needed. They did stay in my pencil case, but it was too much to ask that they staple anything. The staples were always jammed, or out, or too small to puncture through what ever I needed to staple. Eventually I always went back to the heavy black stapler in the kitchen drawer.
My current stapler sits next to me as I write this. I usually keep it in a drawer, but I felt it might offer some inspiration. Cosmetically, it is far superior to the old family stapler. It is sleek and polished with a rounded head and extra lines detailing the lever. Most of all, like my other stationery supplies, it is purple. Large enough to work consistently, but small enough to fit comfortably in my hand while stapling, the stapler is marked as a Swingline model 454. It faithfully follows me to class in my bag, whenever I have forgotten to print out an essay before hand and has, to my knowledge, never jammed. I beginning to see why people might become attached to their staplers. I don't believe that I would like to give up this one anytime soon. Maybe it deserves a name. Stan?
I bet you could say a lot about a person from the stapler they have. Those little staplers never work but they are easily portable. The people who own one probably like to look important, like they need to staple on the go, but aren't really, because they don't know yet that their stapler won't work in a pinch. The heavy duty, metal staplers would be used by two kinds of people. First, there is the sever schoolmarm type of person would like that cold, impersonal, industrialism. The second type of person is the kind who wouldn't care about what kind of stapler they have. These are the people who were issued a stapler by their office instead of buying their own. But what kind of person does care about what kind of stapler they have? What kind of person becomes attached to their stapler? I now have my answer. The kind of person who becomes attached to their stapler is the kind of person who wants to impose order on the world. Each piece of unstapled paper presents an opportunity to categorize, bundle together, and then ultimately staple. That clicking sound is so satisfying because it is the sound of a job well done. It is the sound of organization.
I think I can get behind this stapler movement now. Stan deserves a prominent place on my desk. He does a lot of work for me, so I think next to the computer could be a good place. Maybe I'll even write some stapler poetry. Now, what rhymes with stapler?
Now that I have finally gotten that out of the way, I can go back to my regular randomness.
Another "Nine Beginnings"
1. Why don't you write?
I'm writing this paper as an assignment in an expository writing class. We are supposed to model Margaret Atwood's essay "Nine Beginnings," in which she tries to answer the question, "Why do you write?" This is a fine question for Margaret Atwood because she is, in fact, a writer. I am not. I don't even like to write. My university has suckered me into writing by requiring a writing intensive course. Sure, they try to make it sound less terrifying, discussing the way at least one class in every major can be offered as a writing intensive. Are those classes ever offered? No. I tried to take an anthropology class as a writing intensive and was told that it didn't count anymore because a graduate student was teaching. Now, with my graduation looming, I've realized the truth: I have to take the English department writing class. That involves writing this essay, so here I go.
2. Why don't you write?
In September of 1988, I entered Mrs. Hinson's first grade class at Exton Elementary School in Exton, Pennsylvania. Previously I had attended Malvern Montessori, also in Pennsylvania, because they offered full-day pre-school and kindergarden classes and both of my parents worked. The Montessori method revolves around the idea that children should direct their own education in order to pursue their interests. The teacher will briefly introduce concepts, then let the students pursue whichever activity most inspires them. If a child has something they particularly want to learn, they need only to ask the teacher and materials will be provided. At some point during pre-school I asked to be in the group learning to read. With this background, I started first grade. Naturally, I was ahead of most of the other students in reading ability. I also had an established perfectionistic streak, which would become central to my dislike of writing.
3. Why don't you write?
People often say that reading makes you a better writer. For me, reading made me a much worse writer, or at least, a very frustrated writer who ended up hating the idea of writing. Regardless of what I was doing, I wanted to be the best. I still do. Naturally, when I was told that we would spend time writing stories for a while every day after lunch, the models in my head for these stories were Treasure Island, Anne of Green Gables, Black Beauty, The Wizard of Oz and other classics children's literature. Yet somehow, my tales about cats going trick-or-treating or what ever it was that I happened to be writing, never turned out quite right. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't yet have the ability to fix it. I was a first grader who believed she should write like a professional, and was broken-hearted when that didn't happen. Nevertheless, every day after Lunch and Recess I would dutifully take out my portfolio and try to complete the week's writing assignment. I couldn't. I refuse to turn in substandard work. I would think, and plan, and erase, trying in vain to produce a perfect story, but never reaching the end of even one. Eventually, Mrs. Hinson would say that I had to turn something in by the end of the week. At the appointed time, I would dutifully turn in two sets of papers with words on them. They weren't complete stories. I knew they weren't complete stories, but I would have needed an indefinite amount of time to make them complete. A week later, my papers would come back with comments like needs an ending! or good beginning, rushed ending, no middle! All of which I knew.
4. Why don't you write?
I am a singer. I am occasionally a musical theater actress. I do cross-stitch. Everyone needs a creative outlet, and these are mine. Other people have outlets that I know would never be right for me. I don't paint. I don't draw. I don't play an instrument. (I couldn't get the flute to make any noise and my piano lessons never got very far. In fact I seem directly , or indirectly, responsible for at least three teachers quitting.) I don't write. I don't feel the compulsion to write that many writers describe. I don't have words welling up and fighting to get to the surface. Writing doesn't make me happy; it doesn't make me complete.
5. Why don't you write?
I don't write because I have nothing to say.
6. Why don't you write?
Scratch that last answer. That was too easy, and incidentally not true. It's not that I don't have anything to say, it's that I'm not used to actually saying the things I have to say. I'm "the quiet one." That's just the way it is. Growing up, when I had a smart-ass answer to give in class, I mumbled it under my breath so no one but my friend Vicki heard. Vicki purposefully sat near me whenever possible to hear those comments. My brother, who is still in school, says anything that goes through his head. The main result is that he is known, while I slipped under the radar. Not that slipping under the radar is a bad thing. If no one notices, then your actions can't come back to haunt you.
Writing is incriminating. If something goes down on paper it's there forever, or at least a long while. Detective novels and police shows always talk about paper trails. Much of what we know of the past comes from what was written down: hieroglyphs from Egypt and the Mayan empire, Pepy's diary with the great fire of London, Magna Carta and Declarations of all sorts. If I mess up in writing it, will stick. Better not to write things down. Great, now I sound crazy.
7. Why don't you write?
Spelling counts. That has to be one of my least favorite phrases ever. If I can't write (and I can write I just chose (choose) not to) I can't spell even more. I heard somewhere that the microwave was voted the greatest invention of the twentieth century, but I think my vote whould (would) have gone to the spell-checker. For example, I like to add "e"'s to small words ending in "th", so that both and with turn into bothe and withe. The spell-checker corrects this little foible nicely.
In the fifth grade I rewrote the lyrics of the song, "On My Own" from the musical Les Miserables as if they were sung by Anne from Anne of Green Gables through Anne of the Island. Mr. Poskitt decided that it was absolutely wonderful and had to be read by all sorts of higher up people in the school district. I think he was just impressed that I used the word "fortnight" (which incidentally I'm on a campaign to reintroduce into American English) in a sentence. It was either that or the lyric, "he'll be gone, dead as a doornail." Regardless, I was offered a deal. If I would spend the hour devoted to spelling tests instead writing whatever I wanted in a composition book, I would never have take to another spelling test. I declined.
8. Why don't you write?
I'm sitting here thinking that I only have two sections left, which is good because I can't wait to be done. I'm also thinking that I still have two whole sections, which is bad because I don't know what I want to say in them. In Atwood's original essay, half of the sections are done in the second person. None of mine are. It seems like that means this essay is not such a good model, but the second person point of view is really hard to do. Reading the original essay, I also noticed that there are only really two sections that deal with the past, or more specifically, childhood. Almost all of mine do.
Then I'm thinking that it is 6:30 and I should be hungry, but I'm not. I should make myself some clam chowder because it's easy and comes in a can. I hope I can eat the whole can, since Lara left with the microwave, and I'm not sure reheating soup on the stove tomorrow will work. Then there is that fact that my clothes are in the dryer and the last time they didn't actually dry. I really should be down there watching so no one opens the door to check if the clothes are dry and then leaves it open until the time runs out. Watching laundry spin in the dryer is never a fun proposition, so I'm going to ignore that voice. I don't have another $1.50 in quarters, so if my clothes don't dry I will have to wear some damp clothing tomorrow. I need to be getting back on track.
9. Why don't you write?
For someone who doesn't write, I seem to do an awful lot of writing. There are the essays required for classes, which are pretty easy. I can just look up stuff in the library. I am the master of libraries. Who else would have parts of the Dewey Decimal System memorized? (Somehow I don't think that is something I should share with other people.) For the actual writing process, checking to make sure that I don't use the passive voice and start at least one sentence in each paragraph with a verb has proved to be enough to get a quality grade.
In addition to class work, there are the letters to England. Last year, during my Junior Year Abroad, I went to church at Gloucester Place Baptist, where the average age of the congregation is probably sixty-five. They were ecstatic to see someone under the age of forty attending services and even singing with the music group. All the little old ladies insisted on receiving my address before I came back to the states. Now, they send me letters. It would be rude not to write back.
Excuse me, I believe you have my Hotchkiss ...
A mission so clear
A purpose so unique
To put together what not so obviously fits
The necessary mend
A hopeful gesture
When our lives are strewn in pieces and bits
A simple "click"
A thoughtless touch
And worlds of difference are fraternized such
In green or red
The personality's the same
We expect little of ourselves-- of our documents too much
A piercing moment
A metal contract
Invasion of personal space to bend the rules
A cold-war moment
Opinions face to back
The most desperate of the office tools
Ode to a Stapler, by Hefzibah Koren
I've never seen the movie Office Space, but after the fifth or sixth person quoted the stapler line at me I began to wonder about the kind of person depicted in the movie? What makes an office supply lovable? Why do people become attached to certain kinds? Most importantly, why do we find this love amusing? I began addressing my query in the usual manner: I did a Google search. Looking up pens, I found that the top sites sold pens. Typing three hole punch, the same thing happened. Pencil Sharpener? Check. Erasers and highlighters seem to share their names with computer applications for sale. On the other hand, when I typed stapler into Google the top two sites led to fan pages for the stapler. Internet stapler lovers with no pressing paper attachment needs, may virtually use three different models of staplers to achieve that satisfying crunch sound. Feeling appropriately moved, they write poetry to the stapler; haiku and limericks are popular choices.
While I have a general love for office supplies like note pads with funky cover designs, and I find something satisfying about walking around a Staples or an Office Max, I had never thought much about the stapler. Sure, I remember having a certain pride in High School, that my paper was always stapled before I came to class. I didn't need to wait in line to use the stapler, instead I could hand my paper in directly. There were classrooms where the stapler had broken earlier in the year, and students without a home stapler, or possibly those that had finished their paper in the computer lab during study hall, were reduced to the lowly paper clip. (A Google search places the paper clip in the mid-range of beloved office supplies. It has no fan pages, but people are more interested in its history and inventor than they are in buying some.) Maybe the stapler does deserve a little love.
My searches had not really answered my question. Possibly, the history of the stapler could shed some light on this subject. As with any specialized field of interest, the aspiring staplerphile should become familiar with this fascinating machine. The history of paper fastening started in the 1200s, when someone decided that their assorted papers would be less likely to be lost if they were bound together in some way. A ribbon was passed through a hole in the top of each subsequent page and then fastened with a little sealing wax. Fastening methods involving string remained in vogue for centuries.
The royal court of Louis XV of France provided a leap forward: the first known stapling machine. Each staple used in this machine had to be hand made and inscribed with the insignia of the Royal Court. As time consuming as that endeavor would be, the person with this job must have been the original stapler lover, or possibly the original stapler loather. Individual staples made out of cast iron, sheet metal, and other materials continued to be used for the next two hundred years.
Finally, in the early part of the twentieth century, somebody became sick of losing their free floating staples in the bottom of the kitchen junk drawer and decided to put them together in strips. Called herringbone staples because of the small amount of space between each staple on the sheet, they were made out of a single piece of sheet metal. They came twenty-five staples to a strip and each strip was attached to another with a central bridge. In 1905, B. Jahn Mfg. Co, introduced a rear loading stapler which was effectively the machine we know today. It used herringbone staples, which are connected by a notoriously hard to break center spine. Workers needed to hit the stapler with a hammer in order to actually staple anything. This practice may well be the origin of the idea that if you punch down on a stapler it will work better. Since 1905 changes to the stapler have just been fine tuning.
That didn't really answer my question either. While the stapler is certainly an interesting machine I'm not sure it is really worship worthy. I have yet to be moved to write any poetry. Maybe those sort of feelings only come from the personal relationship that one has with a stapler. I've had repeated contact with two staplers over the course of my life. My first introduction to the world of staplers came from the black one that lives in our kitchen drawer, under the phone, with the pens and the note pads. This stapler bore a strong resemblance to the ones used in school. It was black while they were usually gray or faux wood, and it was an inch or two longer, but they all had the same industrial feel. I believe this stapler to be a later model Swingline. It looks like the Swingline #27, but has a narrower base.
Over the years I had many mini-staplers purchased on school supply shopping trips, hoping that they would stay in my pencil case and be ready to staple anything I needed. They did stay in my pencil case, but it was too much to ask that they staple anything. The staples were always jammed, or out, or too small to puncture through what ever I needed to staple. Eventually I always went back to the heavy black stapler in the kitchen drawer.
My current stapler sits next to me as I write this. I usually keep it in a drawer, but I felt it might offer some inspiration. Cosmetically, it is far superior to the old family stapler. It is sleek and polished with a rounded head and extra lines detailing the lever. Most of all, like my other stationery supplies, it is purple. Large enough to work consistently, but small enough to fit comfortably in my hand while stapling, the stapler is marked as a Swingline model 454. It faithfully follows me to class in my bag, whenever I have forgotten to print out an essay before hand and has, to my knowledge, never jammed. I beginning to see why people might become attached to their staplers. I don't believe that I would like to give up this one anytime soon. Maybe it deserves a name. Stan?
I bet you could say a lot about a person from the stapler they have. Those little staplers never work but they are easily portable. The people who own one probably like to look important, like they need to staple on the go, but aren't really, because they don't know yet that their stapler won't work in a pinch. The heavy duty, metal staplers would be used by two kinds of people. First, there is the sever schoolmarm type of person would like that cold, impersonal, industrialism. The second type of person is the kind who wouldn't care about what kind of stapler they have. These are the people who were issued a stapler by their office instead of buying their own. But what kind of person does care about what kind of stapler they have? What kind of person becomes attached to their stapler? I now have my answer. The kind of person who becomes attached to their stapler is the kind of person who wants to impose order on the world. Each piece of unstapled paper presents an opportunity to categorize, bundle together, and then ultimately staple. That clicking sound is so satisfying because it is the sound of a job well done. It is the sound of organization.
I think I can get behind this stapler movement now. Stan deserves a prominent place on my desk. He does a lot of work for me, so I think next to the computer could be a good place. Maybe I'll even write some stapler poetry. Now, what rhymes with stapler?
Now that I have finally gotten that out of the way, I can go back to my regular randomness.
