Ever since I was a little girl (never mind when and YES they had rubber wheels, on cars and everything, back then!) I’ve had this thing for office supplies. Perhaps, it’s because my mom kept her desk in my bedroom (I grew up in a 5 room house, enough said!) and, every now and again, she would allow me to go nuts with her roller stamp: PAID, CANCELED, COMPLETED, RECEIVED…URGENT!
[blank stare]
I was a senior in high school, when I got my first job working for the board of education as a file clerk and you’d think they’d given me the keys to the geekdom of office supply heaven: I collated, color-coded and stapled the hell out of those nasty little pendaflex folders.
[sound of crickets, chirping]
After graduation, I worked as a secretary, then a bookkeeper and moved onto customer service (back when you actually spoke to a live person, I mean) where I slowly developed a thing for post its, dry erase boards and pens of many, many different colors.
[shiver]
Then, I had kids and, well, I recently found a stack of Gooseberry Patch wall calendars dating back to 2003, the year I developed an affinity for mail order catalogs and prettiful wall calendars.
The thing is, now that my kids are older (me, too, dammit!) and having spent a small fortune on back-to-school supplies, for the last 13 years, I’ve grown a bit…ummmmm…stingy when it comes to the kids borrowing (with the intent of never returning) MY office supplies.
Related: ask a teen where he(she) left his(her) coat/hat/scarf/head and you’ll get a blank stare, however, he(she) WILL find that extra pack of whatever it is you’ve been hiding, wherever it is you thought he(she) would NEVER think to look for it.
So, this morning, I was NOT pleased to find we were ALL out of pens AND needed a new wall calendar….I was THRILLED!!!…YAY!!!!!!!…time to go to the office supply store, i.e. IKEA, for geeks.
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8 responses to “Office Supply Heaven (Sort of Like IKEA, for Geeks!)”
Mini me, indeed.
Doesn’t she have a chalkboard door she can use?
It’s a good thing she’s cute.
BTW I share your love of office supplies. We could have some real fun on a Staples or Office Depot field trip.
Yes, it seems Hope has claimed the new chalkboard door as her own and I realize I'm only feeding into her office supply mania by bringing home a brand new (and very lovely, btw) box of colored chalk…then again…her penmanship is much better than mine 🙂
OMG Liz we must be sisters from another mother because you just described me to a “T” hon – right down to becoming neurotically possessive of MY office supplies and all but padlocking the bedroom door to keep the testosterone carriers out of my bedroom and my office supply sanctuary. Geeks RULE!!!
Hah, you had me at crazy lady in pen aisle 🙂
I’m right there with you in the love of office supplies. I still get giddy thinking about running the ditto machine when I was in elementary school. The good ol days.
My favorite childhood pretend-game was office. My big sister (20 years older than me) had a couple of kids of her own. She supplied us with the BEST stuff. Folders, and cabinets, and order pads of paper with carbons attached to every page. (I don’t know where she got the stuff.) She had a cash register and and adding machine … oh, we had fun.
A cash register AND an adding machine….oh my!!!!!
Every year I look forward to getting a new wall calendar, none of this iCalendar or Google-date-whats-its. It has to be paper, and I have to have colored pens to write on it, each corresponding to a different fam member. I totally get your love of office supplies.