They say the first step to…something, is admitting you have a problem.
My name is foxy, and I have a problem. “hello foxy”
I love office supplies. I become giddy at the idea of shopping at Office Max or Staples. Something about the feeling of a blank notebook of lined paper, (college ruled) just turns me on. Well maybe it doesn’t turn me on, but boy do I like them a lot. The smell of the store, the sound of the various handheld gadgets.
Mechanical pencils, 0.5 lead.; fine tip ballpoint pens.
Click erasers. Three ring binders.
Notebook paper.
I wonder if I am alone in this. Punha says that I am weird for this, but I hope not.
Mmmmmm notebooks! Notebooks of all shapes and sizes for all kinds of purposes–notebooks for list making, notebooks for journal writing, notebooks for note taking. Mmmmmm notebooks!
I really love the organizational thingys, too. Stuff I can put other stuff in to give the false assumption that I have a neat work space.
I think this may just be a genetic trait because my nine year old has a love of Staples and Office Max that rivals my own.
Pens, pencils, notebooks, staples… paper clips. Cool new methods of binding loose paper together, to make them coherent, unassailable presentations. Office chairs, with smooth new rollers. Desk lamps. Rulers, t-squares, drafting tables… gum erasers.
My boyfriend and I have spent many a happy hour, wandering Office Max and Office Depot, playing with supplies, giddy with happiness.
If you want a precedent in literature, there’s a character who shares this obsession in Mark Helprin’s A Soldier of the Great War. Good stuff.
I was overwhelmed when watching Gilmore Girls a few weeks ago to see that they had a special office supply shopping scene. Finally the world of television has acknowledged that we are not deviants that it is normal to want to browse for hours in the stationary dept.
Recently I discovered a boutique office supply store in Melbourne Central. They sell fine hand crafted office supplies to the connoisseur.
I just discovered what could possibly be my new favorite thing…
5-subject college ruled, plastic cover notebooks.
It takes a hold of my organized side…and does very naughty things to it.
Office supplies…oh my GAWD yes! Rulers, notebooks, pens. Binder clips. drool I was so thrilled to discover a housemate at school who was also a Staples junkie. I have a drawer full of pens and pencils, yet I crave more. I lost a Sharpie last weekend, I may have to make an Office Depot run.
Hi, I’m Bill, and I’m a sucker for . . . Butterfly Clips.
When clipping large stacks of paper together, it seems like everyone uses black steel binder clips. Those are nice and all (and I currently have a ring of 18 binder clips sitting on the radiator in my office and god knows how many other sculptures hiding in my desk drawer), but if you really want some classy paper attachment, use butterfly clips.
They are beautiful to look at. They’re so much more elegant than binder clips, with their simple, one-piece design. The large ones are rugged, the small ones are dainty.
At my old office, we used them all the time. There was little better to brighten up your day then going down to the supply room and getting a box of butterfly clips. The small ones come in boxes of 50, and when you open the box they were a bright chrome cascade. The large ones come by the dozen and are neatly lined up in their boxes.
Me too! Me too!
I’m a notebook/paper fiend myself. Do you go look at notebooks, and have to OPEN each one? Even if they are all the same? That’s me.
Notebook covers! Shiny, hip covers! Serious, matte covers! Slimming black! Exhilarating blue! Cute animal pictures! All SORTSA COVERS!
And pens, oh, don’t even get me started on pens…heaven is to be found somewhere in the pen aisle…
*Big giant whiteboards with weekly lined boxes
Executive safes with big dials and fine loxes (?)
Highliters and crayons and notebooks with rings
These are a few of my favorite things…
When the pens break…
When the ink ends…
When my things go baddddd…
I simply drive over to OFFICE MAX fast
And then I start buy–ing like maddddd!*
I love the smell of vinyl notebooks in the morning.
I love it… God help me I do love it so. I love it more than my life.
Ha! I have access to a seemingly endless supply cabinet. No Staples for me, just down to the ground floor and grab a handful of whatever I wish, even AA batteries. And if they don’t have it I can just place an order on our extranet with my corporate card. Heck, we even get free fountain drinks and coffee. No, I don’t have a problem… I can stop anytime I want.
:: shudders at the thought of going cold turkey when I start “flex working” from home in three weeks ::
Oh my god! I was sooooo worried that I was the only one in the world who just adores the look of brand new paper, either notebook, big stacks of unbound paper that I can later bind in many different ways, pens, fountain pens especially, folders, I looove folders!!!
Hi I’m Lothos, and Office Max / Office Depot own me!
Now foxy dear, you know it’s not necessarily a problem? I mean, you’re not missin’ school or work to stay home and load staplers, right (you don’t, uh, make your own staple clips, do you?)?
I can relate, partly I’m sure from having to conjure up many a presentation. Cool stuff I have and have used, besides butterfly clips, are parallel dividers, parallel gliders, decleaters (fancy word for staple removers) and my flexible french curve ( :eek: ).
Engineering rules rule!
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Before graphics software and color printers my business partner and I figured out that between our (then) way cool laser printer ($5000) with downloadable typefaces (!!!), fax machine (!!!) and our two-color copier (!!!) we could look like Exxon. The copier, of course, was temperamental with humidity, paper quality and available power being the main variables. Only my partner and the few who worked for us can appreciate, “Hey, we’re gettin’ good reds this morning!”
[sup]***[/sup]
I can trace the beginnings back to college. Or, perhaps, seventh grade, where my History teacher taught us all how to take class notes in outline form. That knowledge served me well, and I took good notes. Notes that made me appreciate the different forms that notebooks can take.
Notes that were great until…
In college I stumbled upon calligraphy pens. Want to see some pretty notes?
(Hey, Feynn, they’re talking stationery in here - what’s taking you so long?)
My new job is okay, but they have very limited office supplies, and it’s bumming me out. I’m seriously thinking of buying myself a nice set of everything I need to do my clerking job and just putting it in a case and taking it to and from work to use there. I mean, an office that doesn’t have a set of highlighters in every available colour? No Sharpies available at all?!? I don’t even have my own stapler - I may have to burn the place down. I can’t even play my radio at a reasonable level!
(BTW, leechbabe, that would be a “stationery” department - a “stationary” department is one that is not moving - which also applies, I suppose. Yes, some of us office supply lovers are also anal retentive about spelling. :D)
I am an office supply junkie, too. I go into Staples or Office Max and all kinds of hell break loose. I need binders! And color-coded stickers! (STICKERS!!! ::::swoon:::::: And Sharpies! Pretty colored plastic heart-shaped paper clips! Legal pads! Manila folders, yes, yes! COLORED PENCILS!! Oh, baby, yes, gimme some of that Wite-Out!!!
What a terrible hijack, Sue Duhnym. That’s a completely separate obsession altogether!
(All together: “That’s a completely separate obsession!”)
I too lurve office supplies. Working from home, I am given certain leeway to stock up on supplies via the web and the corporate account at Staples.com. So far, no one has questioned why a woman who works in a spare bedroom of her apartment in her pajamas needs six colors of Post-It flags, some 30 odd Sharpies, literally 4,000 assorted size and color paper clips, 6 different sizes of alligator and butterfly clips, 12 bottles of Liquid Paper, a case of legal pads or a $30 red stapler.
Yes, a red stapler. < Homer>Mmm, stapler.</ Homer>