Enough already!

People, PLEASE!! For the love of God and all that is holy, please stop giving my children writing utensils!

I knew it was bad but I didn't know just how bad until I found myself searching for something to put all the markers and pencils and colored pencils and crayons into and when I found a boot box (not a shoe box, a boot box) I thought "OK, this should be big enough."

Seriously?!?

I know pencils with your logo on them are a cheap and easy gimmick for your business. I know the dentist would rather give out pencils than candy for Halloween. I understand pencils are a fun way for Mr. Politician to get his name out there during the Independence Day parade. And I appreciate how the Easter Bunny knows that parents would much rather find a Happy Easter pencil stuck under the couch cushions in June instead of a handful of jelly beans.

But you don't understand. I can't throw all these pencils away! I am a (somewhat quirky) writer-type who appreciates office supplies of all kinds. I love few things more than sitting down with a new notepad and a handful of freshly-sharpened pencils or my favorite style of pen. And I do it all the time but somehow I am still drowning in a sea of Merry Christmas and Happy Halloween and Hoekstra for Congress and Hartrum for Sheriff and Emergency: Dial 911 and Only You Can Prevent Wildfires and Kindergarteners Are Awesome! and Have Your Home Tested For Radon and about a bazillion others.

See?

 

And this isn't even all of them.

I must apologize to all the banker/insurance man/drug sales rep folks because unless your pen was one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time and comfortable to write with it didn't make the cut and went straight to the trash. I also tossed any pencils that didn't have an eraser or that didn't pass my "I like my pencils this long" test. As you can see, we still have enough writing utensils to last this family of four until the year 2053.

So please, if a holiday or other special occasion traditionally calls for gifting candy, feel free to give my children candy. I have no qualms about eating throwing away old candy. But pencils? I love them. I can't bring myself to toss a perfectly good pencil. We just don't need any more of them. There is a ridiculously large supply stashed in every logical place in the house.

Now ... finding a pencil sharpener around this place? That's a different story. Can't somebody make pencil sharpeners with your company logo on them?

Where have all the paperclips gone?

I was just saying to The Mister this morning that I felt like going on a shopping spree. It must be the sunshine causing me to want to spruce things up around the house because this is a bit unusual for me; I'm not much of a shopper just for shopping's sake. Besides, I know a shopping spree of any sort just isn't in the budget right now, and that is fine with me. That is, it was fine with me until I realized that someone has been messing with my office supplies.

I started gathering all of our income tax paperwork to drop off at the accountant's office, and I could not find a paperclip in this house to save my life. Not one. I found a few of those binder clip thingies, but that wasn't what I wanted. All I wanted was one stinkin' paperclip so all those papers could slide nicely into an envelope.

Pens? Pencils? Gazillions of them. Highlighters? More than we will ever use. Rubber bands, erasers, and Sharpies, even. And by some blessed miracle there are even staples in the stapler. But no flippin' paperclips. I resorted to the smallest binder clip thingy I could find.

I also printed out some "Lost Dog" fliers the kids and I made up last night. I intended to stop a few places and hang them up while I was out running errands. Oh, by the way, we're on our last 10 or 12 sheets of printer paper. What?!? I bought a ream of paper (500 sheets!) a year ago and I've printed maybe 50 pages since then. Apparently I need to keep the white, unlined paper in a different drawer.

I figured it might be easier on store clerks if I had my own tape and/or tacks to hang up these fliers, so off I went in search of both. Another miracle: I find not one, but two rolls of Scotch tape in the drawer where they belong. The tacks? Behold:

 

What the heck am I supposed to do with these? They look like a thumbtack version of A Chorus Line!

I'm pretty sure I know how they got that way and it has everything to do with a little boy and a hammer. I don't really care. What I can't figure out, though, is why they ended up back in the box. Ah well. I did find a few undamaged ones. I guess I'll have to hide those, too.