Stubborn stapler cries out for refills ... but where are they?

Do you ever have the refill blues, when your life is filled with empty staplers or the equivalent thereof? Recently, I had to fill three, count ’em, three empty staplers in one day. Naturally, I never find the empty ones until I’m in a hurry to fasten things together and get off to a meeting somewhere. 

Then I have to scrounge around to find the box of staples (“They’re not in the drawer? They’re supposed to be in the drawer!”).

When/if I find the staples, I have to remind myself how to open that particular model of stapler, get it open and then … oh, right. These staples won’t fit. The rod of staples I have in one hand has more staples than will fit into the stapler I have in my other hand. 

Based on woeful and painful experience, I can definitively state that shoehorning doesn’t work with sharp metal objects.

So I have to make the long rod of staples shorter. 

Oh dear. Spatial relationships like that are way too much like obscure math questions. 

“If Q is X inches long, and must fit into W, which is X inches shorter, how do you know exactly where to break Q to make it fit in W, and what time will the train arrive in Tulsa?” 

Inevitably, I snap off more staples than I need to, leaving me with a sizeable gap in the stapler. Tough. I slide it shut anyway, promising myself I’ll fill that gap with a straggler rod-end later.

I never remember to do that, of course. 

But the staplers weren’t the only empties that needed refilling that day. Heavens, no!

I’d already faced down three empty rolls of bathroom tissue (two in public restrooms!); a half-gallon milk carton in the refrigerator with about two tablespoons of milk left in it; a strip of empty mini cups that are supposed to hold two week’s worth of vitamins; and flashing-beeping chaos in my car warning me that the windshield-washer-fluid container was empty ... when my grubby windshield and I were already on the highway. 

I also spend a substantial part of my life refilling smaller containers from larger ones, probably from Costco. 

­Why? The larger ones won’t fit in our real-life cabinets, drawers or refrigerator — the latter being a side-by-side that will only hold a box of eggs, a pound of butter, a bottle of catsup, a head of lettuce, a lump or two of mystery elderly meat and a tub of yogurt. A small tub.

All day long, I’m refilling little containers from bigger bottles, jugs, boxes and bags that have to live in more spacious but inconvenient accommodations. 

Or I’m unpacking packages of eight somethings because only four of them would fit under the sink.

Stapler day had been no exception, refilling-wise. 

Now, there was an agenda in front of me, approximately a ream of paper transformed into a large packet of yawn-producing information designed to guide me through a long governmental meeting. (Staying awake was my own problem.)

All the agenda pages had been clipped together with one giant binder clip, those spring-loaded, pincher-type metal devices with wings you squeeze together to open the pincher, which then inevitably snaps shut on my fingertip.

I prefer to separate an agenda out into its individual items, so they’re easier to sift through fast if the board president suddenly decides to rearrange the order in which the issues are to be discussed. Which happens a lot.

And the perfect end to my triple-header, empty-stapler day? 

I grabbed a fourth stapler, so I could get the agenda divvied up and then get to the meeting for which I was already late. Again.

I stuck pages for the first agenda item into the stapler … which, unfortunately, had been refilled with those nasty little tag ends of snapped-off stapler rods. 

Of course, one of them wobbled and wound up cattywampus.  

And the staples jammed.

As my comments turned the air a little blue, I stuffed a handful of binder clips into my pocket and headed out the door to get to the meeting.

Some days, you just have to let the stapler win.

This story was originally published February 18, 2015 at 12:41 PM with the headline "Stubborn stapler cries out for refills ... but where are they?."