SCB's work has two types of staplers... one type sits at the front sales counter, the other type are located at each person's desk. The sales counter staplers take SR4 staples... and the ones at the staff desks take standard staples.
Before the other day, I had litterally no idea staples came in different sizes. Ya, I knew some automatic machines took fancy staples, but I didn't know that a regular manual machine could in fact be size and style specific.
But back to SCB's work and their two types of staplers. This office stapler duality wouldn't normally be an issue if they stocked both types of staples (standard and SR4's)...
But they don't order them... nor will their manager replace the desk standard staplers with SR4 compatable modles.
(He just doesn't like to spend money- proof in point, one of their office desk phone cords keeps falling out of the jack, causing the client on the phone to ovbiously not hear anything on the line. One day after being fed up with asking for a new phone and never getting one, another employee just took the managers phone off his desk when he was out of the office... and replaced it with his inferrior unit... and the manager never said a darn thing. He just keeps using the broken phone and when the cord falls out, he just plugs it back in and keeps chatting away claiming they must have bad cell reception.)
So needless to say, it drives SCB absolutely CRAZY that the standard staplers keep jamming. Its a little game. How many times can I staple before is jams. Its russian roulett with paper.
The other day when we were leaving California Fish Grill after a date night and heading to the car, SCB noticed the Staples store. He started jumping up and down like a little kid, begging to go inside, determined to buy a stapler that would take SR4's so he could use that one at his desk.
I love the man I married and thus allowed our date night to conclude in Staples. As a reasonable women, I didn't want to spend an arm and a leg on a stapler when the one I have at home was something I got for free, but apparently you can spend north of $30 for a stapler that does nothing but stapel paper apparently...
So I told him under $10 bucks and he was gold since we had already technically gone over budget with spending this month. While we were searching the packaging to figure out which ones were standard and which were SR4 (because picking up staples that actually worked was never a solution?) We found one. It was actually in a little package with some staples and a staple remover for about $8.00... $9.71 with tax.
There's just one problem. The last one they had was pink.... and all the other ones were $30 or more.
Bright shinny pink...
His co-workers already tease him about his little USB Christmas Tree and the 2 inch tall My Little Pony he keeps on his desk at work (a true brony at heart)... but I could tell he was considering its purchase... But, because every good story has a but... the display model was still there... and it was purple...
Which is SCB's absolute most favorite color ever... (and as a plus, its less likely to be "stolen" to another person's desk who is also suffering from stapler sadness...)
but again, it was the display model...
As SCB continued to stare at the purple stapler with want and desire... I knew what we could do. We could ask the nice employees if we could just have the purple one and leave the pink one on display.
But SCB hates talking to strangers... litterly. Sometimes in large settings he will pretend he didn't either hear someone ask him a question... or he'll pretend they are talking to someone else in the group and he'll just turn to look at someone else randomly for the reply... all so he doesn't have to answer. That or after i've tugged on his shirt, nudged him in the side and gotten his attention.. he mumbles two or three words and looks at me to elaborate for him. After 3 years, I've finally been able to finally get him to talk to resturant staff (like to get a to-go box or to send something back if its wrong) but it took 3 years to get him there and I relish in the victory now... but when it comes to special requests outside of the normal- Do you have more of these?- he's still as shy as the day I met him.
Seeing the need in his eyes and the fact that he was thinking about purchasing the pink stapler and calling it a day, I went and found an employee and presented our case. Before agreeing, she wanted to make sure they didn't have any in the storage bins above... and truth be told, it was the last one in the place. We waited while she talked to her manager, who must have been in a great mood because she relented and they opened the package and swapped them out and sealed them back up.
$9.71 later and all his problems were solved... until we got home.
He started playing with the stapler and the staples, grinning from ear to ear as one by one the staples cleared the mechanize and didn't jam as he clicked down on the lever. On a whim he pulled out our black stapler to show me what he ment about how they jam. (Apparently I needed to be educated on the matter), So he loaded it with the SR4 staples and started clicking away...
It didn't jam.
It continued not to jam...
Apparently the solution to all his problems was the black heafty free stapler I had picked up 5 years ago from a friend who was clearing out an office and told us to take what we wanted...
So now the black stapler is going to go to his work tomorrow (which really takes standard staples... so I don't know what it isn't jaming with the SR4's)... but because its not made of plastic and it's heavy duty, he wanted to take it instead... so now i'm left with the purple SR4 stapler????
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