Empty Staplers

Hello and welcome to my wonderful,

blog![1]

 I will be posting whatever my (1) brain (cell)s decide(s) to come up with in my mighty 1.5kg brain.[2]

Anyways, as you may already know from the title, today’s blog post will be about staplers.[3] On page 14 of The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker, there was a specific passage which I found quite striking and would like to discuss with you all:

“…first, before the stapler arm makes contact with the paper, the resistance of the spring that keeps the arm held up; then, second, the moment when the small independent unit in the stapler arm noses into the paper and begins to force the two points of the staple into and through it; and, third, the felt crunch, like the chewing of an ice cube, as the twin tines of the staple emerge from the underside of the paper and are bent by the two troughs of the template in the stapler’s base, curving inward in a crab’s embrace of your memo, and finally disengaging from the machine completely—but finding, as you lean on the stapler with your elbow locked and your breath held and it slumps toothlessly to the paper, that has run out of staples. How could something this consistent, this incremental, betray you?” (Baker 14)

     In this passage, the narrator (whose name we later discover is Howie) goes into extensive detail about how a stapler staples, explaining the three steps in which this happens. The arm of the stapler is pushed down as the staple within the stapler pierces through the paper, then the ends of the staple fold at the back side of the now-stapled paper, and the stapler arm is released—now imagine trying to staple a piece of paper and not getting that satisfying “crunch” and then being met with utter disappointment because no changes were made to the piece of paper that was supposed to be stapled. The way Howie described this situation was very anticlimactic but that captures the exact sensation and emotions of stapling with an empty stapler.

    I cannot explain how many times this has happened to me. Of the moments I remember stapling an empty stapler, most took place in Uni’s library. Just before quarantine, I recall the staplers provided in Uni High’s library were well stocked most of the time I went to go staple something. But before last school year(maybe earlier, I don’t know), the staplers either didn’t have staples in them most of the time or the staplers were just no where to be found. Which obviously was frustrating, having to walk around with needing-to-be stapled papers clutched in my sweaty hands, slowly wrinkling from the moisture.

    Anyways, I think Howie, or rather Baker, precisely depicts the emotions regarding stapling an empty stapler and I could not believe how accurate the emotions I felt were while reading that passage as I imagined all the instances in which I stapled an empty stapler. I think for someone to write such a realistic, every day situation with the perfect description, the writer must have had to have the same experience to be able to deliver such relatable emotions to the reader. I feel like most people have had this experience, but if not, I suppose you wouldn’t understand the absolute pain of having to go search(on a very long journey) for a different stapler or rummaging through drawers to find extra staples(which somehow always seem to be hidden in the deepest, most obscure parts of drawers and cabinets).[4]

 

Thank you for reading and let me know what you think! 

-Y

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[1] Had to censor some words in the picture. I didn’t know the word “wonderful” had so many…interesting synonyms.

[2] Why does the human brain weigh so much? Realistically it should be 0.1kg--I barely have anything up there. At least its still functional. I think.  

[3] I normally cannot think of decent titles for things (I’m not saying “Empty Staplers” is a decent title, as its quite plain, but I’m surprised I even came up with one).

[4] I have a feeling I overused the words “staple/stapler” throughout this blog post. 33 times I believe.