thoughts on the little things re: Office Supplies

I may be the only person who's ever experienced this (so contradictory, considering my last post), but I work at a desk -- that's not the unique part, just wait, I'm getting there. So all day long I deal with the things on my desk. I have a computer, a keyboard, and then various shaped containers that hold little things. These little things also vary. I have a little thing holder for paperclips, another one for pens/pencils/highlighters, another for pennies (and nickels, if I'm lucky). I also have one for push pins -- that's the dangerous one and I have to stop and warn myself: "Be careful Meghan, you remember what happened last time...."

I have a love-hate relationship with paperclips. They're annoying to refill, and they run out the second-quickest after staples. Staples are more fun to refill because they go into a neat gun-like object, that I get to test before putting to use. Paperclips just kind of sit there, and sometimes they get tangled, which is never fun if you're in a hurry, yet they are incredibly functional. 

I end up giving a lot of my paperclips away. When you work with lots of paper, it is necessary to gather this paper into organized piles, which then need to be bound somehow. More often than not, I end up handing off these organized paper-clipped paper piles, which, in the deep recesses of my mind is upsetting, because I know I'll never get that paperclip back. I deplete my paperclip stash daily, bringing me closer to the day I'll need to go to the office supplies drawer and yank another paperclip box from its clingy plastic wrapper to be dispensed into the appropriate little things holder. 

Subconsciously I have also, in a sense, rated the importance of said little things. For example, the staple suggests permanence. The staple pierces paper requiring the assistance of another object, the staple-remover, to...um...remove it. Paperclips require no such object. Therefore, there is a certain amount of judgement that goes down at that little desk of mine. I have the final say: Staple! Paperclip! These decisions are made without much thought, really, but they are made. All decisions are. 

Yes, I am writing about office supplies. I can't help it. I deal with them every day, handle them on the hour, and, honestly, could not live without them. Some people might say the same about their favorite accessory or lipgloss, and those people will understand where I'm coming from. 

I would like to think that we all have a quirky, relatively unacknowledged relationship with the inanimate objects of our lives. If you don't, that's OK, I'm sure you do.