Office Romance
29th May 2009
John Derbyshire, Patron Saint of Dyspepsia, offers a look at the lighter side of pessimism.
That’s right, stationery with an ‘e’. (The difference was immortalized, at least in England, on one of those vulgar comic postcards George Orwell wrote a famous essay about. A gorgeous female store assistant is being addressed by a callow-looking young man. He: “Excuse me, Miss, do you keep stationery?” She: “Well, sometimes I wriggle a bit.”) Stationery! I love the stuff. Paper, pens, notepads, folders, envelopes, markers, erasers, staples, push pins, paper clips, bulldog clips, poster board, display board, foam board, desk furniture … A stationery store is to me … what? Aladdin’s cave? Pah! — What did Aladdin know? You can’t do anything with a mess of rubies.
Preach it, brother.