The Stapler

            I can’t stand writer’s block.  It’s been fifteen minutes now, and I still don’t have a topic…or an idea, for that matter.  As I stare at the blank white page, the one that’s supposed to be filled with an essay analyzing Ethan Frome, I realize that sitting here and thinking about how hopeless the situation is won’t help me at all.  Shoot.

            I push the chair back from the desk, its cheap plastic wheels barely rolling on the thick carpet.  If I begin looking around the room and letting my mind wander, I might just come up with an idea.  It’s worked before.  I begin a mental inventory of the objects in the room, hoping that I’ll see something – anything – that will give me an idea.  My dad’s CDs, library books, Halloween candy that’s no longer edible, an empty clothes basket, a small Snoopy doll…There’s nothing in this room that hasn’t been there for ages, and absolutely nothing at all that’s giving me an idea.  The only thing that’s occurred to me is that we need to clean our house more often, and that’s not going to help me get the essay done.

            The shelves off to my right a bust, I begin digging through the clutter on the computer desk, continuing my vain attempt to be inspired.  To be honest, I’m not very picky at the moment.  There was a pickle dish in the book, and we talked about that for ten minutes in my English class.  If I could find a way to get an essay’s worth of material from a red pickle dish, I would.  Three pages on the importance of the pickle dish as a symbol of a broken marriage?  I could do it.  It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I’ve written about.

            Turning back towards the monitor, I see a pile of CDs that have been left next to the keyboard.  I pick up the stack, with every intent to put the CDs away.  That’s when I notice my salvation, the one object that had been hidden behind the jewel cases.  I’ve found our stapler.

            I have no idea why the stapler has caught my eye, but I’d much rather play with it than to try to write my essay.  I pick it up with one hand, and the first thing that comes to mind is that it feels heavy.  I’m not sure why it does; it’s been months since I’ve used the stapler or bothered to refill it.  I stare at it, focusing on the reflection of my eyes and nose on the metal staple holder.  I remember reading that part was called a staple magazine.  I don’t know for the life of me why I remembered that, though. 

After a good thirty seconds of gazing at the stapler, I notice that it  is upside down.  I flip it over and begin examining it again.  It’s not very attractive, as far as staplers go.  In fact, it’s downright boring…and khaki.  It’s the shade of khaki that you see everywhere, as the color of men’s pants, as the color of a computer’s plastic case, as the color of countless office supplies that fill countless cubicles in countless offices.  The monotony of the khaki metal, the metal that is the stapler, is broken only by the shiny metal magazine and a small patch of fake wood along the stapler’s top.    The staple magazine is covered with fingerprints.  Considering that it’s been months since I’ve used it, I don’t think I want to know whose fingerprints those are or how long they’ve been there.  I run my hand along that patch of “wood,” the stamped, slightly raised “Swingline” logo against my fingertips.  The logo is gold – was gold, rather – and is beginning to vanish.  The stapler has seen better days.  I reach the end of the fake wood and hear my finger clink against the end of the patch.  After a bit of investigation, I realize that the fake wood is almost definitely metal.  I feel cheated, even though I didn’t buy the stapler and I have no need for actual wood on it.  It just seems wrong to me.  If they can get away with metallic wood on a stapler, who knows what else the corporations will try to sell us next?  Meat made of tofu?

I roll the stapler in my hands again, stopping it so that its bottom is facing up.  Like the rest of the stapler, it’s not very exciting.  Two patches of gray rubber, one on each end, keep the stapler from sliding.  It wouldn’t slide anyway – the desk isn’t very smooth, and it’s not crooked – but it’s the thought that counts.  Or the effort.  I’m not entirely sure which it is in this case.  The groove along the bottom of the stapler is stamped with various words and phrases, including “Made in the U.S.A.”  It’s nice to know that my family is supporting America’s stapler industry instead of buying the cheaper foreign staplers.  The only other thing worth noting on the stapler’s bottom is a small metal tab.  I push it up with my finger, and the top half of the stapler swings into my kneecap.  OUCH!

I snap the stapler back together and return it to its home on the desk.  It’s not logical, but I’m mad at the stapler.  It bored me, and then it physically assaulted me.  If it wasn’t for the fact that I know that it’s not alive, I’d say that the thing has got it out for me.  Beyond that, I still need an idea for the essay.  I can’t write about a stapler…or can I?

I’ve got it!  Write about the stapler as a symbolic representation of Mattie, the sole bond that holds the marriage of Ethan and Zeena Frome together!  I can even go into how the stapler’s shiny metal magazine is a representation of the reflection that Ethan does throughout the novel!

In one instant, three things occur to me simultaneously.  There was no stapler in Ethan Frome, staplers probably didn’t exist in the early 1900s, and the idea would have been idiotic even if it fit the book.  I settle down into the computer chair again and sigh, focusing on the monitor once again.  It’s too bad that I can’t write about the stapler.  I’ve got a feeling that I could have made an essay about a stapler work…