03 12 00

office supplies

During the night we got about an inch of snow, the heavy wet stuff. It'll all be gone tomorrow or Tuesday, but it meant I had to dig my snowbrush out of the car again.

I had an errand to run today. I got my printer for Christmas two years ago, and it's finally running out of ink. Most of the stuff I print is text, so I don't use much ink. But I'm saving images of cakes and bouquets that I find, and I'd like to print them out to show other people.

The problem with going to get an ink cartridge, though, is that I had to go to Office Max. This store sets off a pre-programmed WARNING sign in my head. I start sweating as soon as I enter the store, and I shake for hours after I've left.

Why? I love office supplies. My mom does, too, so I guess it's genetic or something. I've always loved shopping for school supplies, and it's great fun to page through the office supply catalogue at work.

The problem is that I want to buy everything in the store. I walk through the aisles in a daze, looking at organizers and desk sets and paper. Lots of paper. I have more paper than I can ever use. Notebooks, printer paper, notepads, loose leaf... If you want paper, I'm your gal. Paper clips, staplers, pens, pencil sharpeners, CD software racks. Wastebaskets, shredders, planners, filing systems. I want it all.

When I walked into Office Max today, I had two items on my list: an ink cartridge and a three-ring binder (to use as a wedding planner). I got stuck for a moment at the cartridges, trying to figure out which one I needed for my printer. When I found it ($34! Augh!) I went to look for a binder.

I entered the Hall of Binders.

A floor to ceiling aisle of binders and accessories greeted me. From petite half-inch binders to mega five-inch binders, I struggled to get only what I needed: a one-inch binder. Even after I found that, I still had a dizzying array of choices. Did I want blue, white, black, gray, red, or yellow? Did I want customizable covers and bindings? How about pockets on the inside? Some of them came with a plastic insert to help move pages. Also, I could choose between regular or heavy-duty binders.

I ended up getting a white, heavy-duty binder with pockets on the inside and a customizable cover and binding. I figured I'd be using the planner for a whole year, and then it would be a good keepsake, so it made sense to get the nice one. Right? Besides, the heavy-duty binder could hold 275 pages, opposed to the regular's 175 pages.

Then I made the mistake of walking further down the aisle. They had dividers. Regular, classic, professional, color-coded or customizable. Five, eight, ten, fifteen or eighteen dividers. Some came with tabs, some came with tables of contents.

Good grief. I must have stood there for fifteen minutes, drooling over the selections. I knew I wanted dividers, but I didn't know how many I needed. I decided to get eight dividers, with the caveat that I could always come back and get more (!) if I needed to. The ones I chose came with their own tabs that you could print out on your computer. Neat!

And then I turned around to leave. On the other side of the aisle were transparent document protectors. swoon! Are these people trying to kill me? I snatched up the cheapest ones I saw, just to settle the craving I felt. Um, yeah. Document protectors. I can... um... keep important stuff in them.

Shut up.

Anyway, I ran out of the aisle. But now I was on the opposite end of the store from the checkout lane, and I had to walk through the center aisle (which is filled with pens and post-its!) to get to the front. My stomach churned. I could do it. My hands shook. I kept walking.

And I reached the checkout lane without picking up anything else! Yay!

I stood in the checkout, studiously ignoring all the neato "impulse" items they had up there. It's cruel, I tell you! They had these little hole punchers that made designs like stars and hearts and...

I escaped that evil place for under $50. But not by much.

Of course, after I got home I printed out the tabs for the dividers, and I realized I'll probably need one more 8-pack of dividers to finish it up. Which means going back. Which means walking through that aisle again. Which means...

I need help.

Dating

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