I'd Kill For Just A Little Snort Of Wite-Out®
Part of my recovery is I am supposed to be honest about my problems, so here we go: I. . . I am an office supplies addict. I abuse office supplies. No, not in the way my friend from the FFA in high school abused his favorite pet sheep Fleecy; rather, I have a powerful. . . predelection for office supply products, and I cannot stop myself once I have started. Me in Manning's is like an alcoholic in a liquor store. I hit Office Depot as hard as a junkie hits Weiss Park. When I'm flush and ballin' the jack, I load up on Acco prong fasteners, Mead organizers, Day Runner daily planners and every conceivable accessory for them, and every kind of pen and/or writing utensil known to man. I haul it all home, penniless now, and shove it in a closet already full of that kind of stuff. Afterward I feel calm, at peace, and happy with the world. The only thing I can liken it to is the post-coital high one has after a particularly satisfying encounter with that very special person you've spent your life with and/or just met about 30 minutes ago. And like the joy of sex, the office supply buzz only lasts for so long; pretty soon one feels compelled to start working on satisfying the ol' primal urge again.
In my case, I had clearly lost control. I can see that now. Back before my intervention, I rationalized that it was perfectly normal to have six dozen or so unopened 2-packs of the cool Pilot G-2 gel pens, along with 15-20 replacement cartridges. I don't use the printer on my home computer much, so I felt okay letting the bright white copy paper inventory drop down to a meager 15 reams; I compensated for this by buying up every one of the marbled black and white composition books the local Dollar Tree store had on hand. When I found a deal on those pink erasers one can stick on the end of a No. 2 pencil (I always seem to be out of those when I need one), I bought ten boxes, 1oo erasers to a box. I bet I don't run out now.
When I take a prescription to the drug store and am told it will take 15 minutes to fill if I want to wait, I nonchalantly drift over to their understocked supplies section (usually next to the greeting cards) and then fervently look through everything they have on display. I am usually disappointed (and startled) when my name comes booming over the store loudspeaker, waking me from my reverie to say my Rx is ready for pickup.
Several friends had become more and more distressed at my downward spiral. I had begun staying home so I could look at all my empty, brand new 3-ring binders by myself. I had begun talking about finding a deal on a copy machine/fax/printer for the house, or one of those machines that prepares reports with about a hundred little holes on the left side of the page, and then inserts a plastic thing that holds it together like a spiral notebook.
My wife caught me one night after I thought she'd gone to bed. I'd pulled out a box I keep hidden in the bottom drawer of my desk. The box contains some old onion-skin typing paper and several sets of three-part carbon paper I found one time in a garage sale. There's even one of those old typing eraser pencils with a brush on the other end in there. I was quietly fondling this stuff, muttering, "Vintage, vintage. . . " when my wife walked in on me. She said she was leaving me if I didn't get help, and I didn't care. I can always get another wife, but it's not every day one can finger through actual typewriter history.
So my family and friends ambushed me one day. My neighbor called and said he'd found an old Underwood typewriter in his attic, and did I want to look at it. When I walked in his house, there were a bunch of my loved ones there, looking all concerned, and some scrawny bald-headed guy I'd never seen before. His name, he said, was 'Van Der Hooven' or something like that. "I'm just here to help your family and friends. They want to say some things to you, and then you can say what you want, and that's it, OK?" I'm thinking, yeah, whatever. Now, where is that Underwood?
So they're all crying and stuff and telling me how worried they are then this Van Pelt dude says, "Will you get help today?" Now, I ask you, what could I say? I said I would, and now everyone was crying tears of joy, and Van Der Waal says, "There's a plane waiting for you on the tarmac at Beaumont airport (BEX) ready to take you to the 3M Recovery Center up in Minnesota. You'll get good treatment there."
So the next thing you know I'm on my way to Minnesota. I was in this recovery center for 3+ months, working on my 12 steps and going to group therapy every day. Finally they said I was good to go. That was last week sometime. Now I'm back home, and on the road to recovery. My desk in my home office here is kind of a mess though, since I've been away so long. A few of those six-pocket organizers would help me straighten things up, and some of those big-ass binder clips. . .
2 comments:
I could have written this. I can truly relate.
When I was growing up, a good, sharp pencil with the eraser intact was hard to find around the house. Finding a pen with plenty of ink, lots of writing paper,
sharp scissors or staples to fill the tiny Swinger stapler was almost a joke. Even trying to locate the one, handheld yellow pencil sharpener that left half the wood of the pencil on one side of the lead was a challenge.
My grandfather was self employed as an insurance agent. On visits, I'd sit at his desk and go from drawer to drawer fiddling with the ample amount of pencils and pens and paper clips and rubber bands and sucking in the smell of stationery. I love the smell of stationery in the morning...
I was not going to be a have-not when I got a place of my own. I too used the dollar stores and close out shops to full advantage and built quite a collection of office supplies. Today, I can offer an item at request. 3 x 5 cards? No problem. Red pens? How many do you need? What's that you want? A protractor? Of course I have one...don't really know why, but here you go. I found it on sale.
I can gladly say, with much satisfaction I might add, that my days of ripping my writing paper with a stubby, worn down lead pencil are over. There actually are erasers on my pencils nowadays instead of bent, metal ends.
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! That was great! I forgot about those typewriter eraser pencils.
What no mimeograph paper and little blue bottle of correction stuff? Smellllled SO good.
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