Those wacky Roman Numerals!

This morning dragged on for what felt like a month, Thursday a leap year, Wednesday through to Tuesday all of my twenties, and don’t ask me about Monday because that’s way before I was born!

Thankfully my brood of six-legged insects hasn’t grown any bigger (although my keyboard does smell vaguely better), and Jaws and I are on a first name basis having stapled our way through the mess of reports detailing how profits are up and orangutan stomach sizes are down. Only another three more hours until I get to escape to a place where there aren’t any newsletters, droning computers, reptiles for bosses, or teary kids and terrified parents to reunite after being separated between ice cream stands.

And even though I sincerely thank the inventors of the Roman calendar for pausing all this insanity, I still can’t help but wonder why they didn’t invent two weekends a week instead of one.

Ms sincerely-hoping-it’s-still-Friday M.

Stampy meet Jaws

Stampy’s replacement arrived today.

It came in a box labelled ‘dangerous’, had iron bars across the front, and when I neared the corner it growled at me. After arming myself with a heelless shoe and the succulent that’s more dirt than suckle due to my masterful brown thumbs, I bravely approached the cardboard cell and unleashed the beast.

It was big.
Huger than big.
The most massively hugest stapler ever made, or at least the biggest I had ever seen in person.
The picture on the Internet looked so small and cute, and I thought it would have been the perfect replacement for Stampy; not coming too soon after his demise, yet soon enough before the piles of unstapled papers began co-mingling. If I had known that it was a model requiring an extension to my office and three horizontally challenged people to be dropped on top of it just so it could snap, I probably would have ordered the slightly smaller version.

As it is, I desperately need things to be fastened together, so Jaws and I are going to try and be friends.

Now if only I could find a way out of my office,

Ms stuck-between-a-stapler-and-an-MDF-divider M.

My keyboard now, the world by next Tuesday.

Forget about imaginary cats named dog because a real ant is now living inside my keyboard.

I saw it yesterday while throwing together the minutes of Wednesday’s senior staff meeting, and just as I was up to the part where Mr A couldn’t remember if the minutes of the last minutes had been amended or not, a black spec scurried across the ridge of my keyboard before darting in between F11 and F12.

I’ve never used either of these buttons before, so for all I know, they might be there to serve as homes away for home for itinerant ants, but my concern is if there are others in there, or even just one other but of the opposite sex, and they started getting their antennas in a knot, because enough lint and food scraps have fallen between the keys to feed a whole colony. And then what? Would these tiny creatures gang up and demand that I stopped tapping on their roof, and if I didn’t, would they know me from my scent, eventually track down where I live, and munch into my supply of Tim Tams?

I think it’s safest to take Stampy’s lead and do what he did best,

Ms queen-of-all-things-small-and-smaller M.

The dynamic duo

I have decided that in addition to selecting a not-so-super power, I require the services of a sidekick to do all the boring superhero things like washing capes, darning ladders in stockings and coordinating press releases for local authorities. And although scanning through the pages of Seek I’ve noticed that I’m spoilt for candidates, I have decided that my sidekick will in fact be an imaginary cat.

I've always liked imaginary cats over real ones as they tend to leave less fur about the place and I won’t have to change the kitty litter as often. Being imaginary also has the advantage of being invisible to all those without an imagination, and everyone knows that baddies are inevitably defective in this area. So an imaginary sidekick for my real life superhero in my spare time it is.

And as for its name, I think I’ll call it dog.

Ms imaginary-cat-woman M.

Live and let fry

Due to a recent tragedy involving a close and personal piece of stationary, I have given myself a mission, and that is to get a date. It is a mission that I choose to accept even though it holds the prospect of publicly self-destructing. If the demise of Stampy has taught me one thing, it’s that I need to push things along, and in order to further spice up my life between breaths, I plan to continue working as a P.A during the day and sleep between organic linen at night, BUT, in my spare time I will be a stripper who fights crime with her yet to be determined superpower.

Like with most decisions in life there are three gifts to choose from; the ability to appear invisible when standing next to younger women, the gift of leaping small puddles with the aid of a decent run up, and a lasso of truth that doubles as an Alligator strap of reasonable strength.

Then all I’ll need is a uniform that makes the most out of my curves without turning them into a sidekick.

Ms licence-to-grill M.

Nadafest

Two days have now passed and I feel a bit better about Stampy, as I’m convinced that he’s flown to a place where the staples are twelve karat gold and never run out. Meanwhile, several kilometres below stationary heaven, I'm still waiting for my own stamp of approval. Last night I pushed the odds by venturing out to a local RSL that had gone Germanic for Octoberfest, but there was fierce competition for the few decent specimens, and I was distinctly disadvantaged by not being dressed as a beer wench.

Apparently ordinary wenches need not apply.

I could hire a costume next year and have absolutely no troubles filling out the top half, but it’s my ability to expand the bottom half at an even better ratio that could hurt my yeast-fuelled chances. What I really need to come up with is that ‘no sweat no diet exercise’ routine which reduces my caboose but leaves the puppies.

Ms too-much-bounce-to-be-fabulous M.

RIP Stampy

My stapler died on Friday.

I thought it was going to be a quick fix with the staples having jammed inside, but when I opened him up and the staples were all lined up nicely, I knew that something was terribly wrong. I rang for Ms O in reception – a woman with over thirty years of stationary resuscitation experience, but it was beyond even her help.

I suppose twenty-one years is a pretty good run for something that gets forcibly snapped together, but I can’t help thinking it could have turned thirty if only I hadn’t forced poor Stampy to get his teeth into things thicker than he should have. It was also the last piece of the old me, having survived since my first day at the zoo. The unbreakable metal ruler had long since bent and snapped, and my favourite pens had stopped working because they could or had migrated without my permission to other people’s desks.

Although I know that Stampy will have to be replaced with an elchaepo made in China by a Filipino model (model of stapler that is, although who knows what state the Filipino fashion circuit is in), I’m still going to keep Stampy as a paperweight reminder of the me that once was.

Ms rest-in-one-tightly-bound-piece M.

It's now or slightly later…

I have decided to prioritise.

Life before work, or more specifically; inner pleasure before external satisfaction.

To make up for lost time I have already picked out the shiny rock that will adorn my finger for when the yet to be named he and I slide on down the isle. When I say rock I really mean rocks, as it’s a beautiful 1930’s marcasite number with over forty points of affordable bling. The plan is to drop to one knee by the third date and ask / beg if this special he would ‘engage’ me. With any luck he will say yes, and by the end of the night we will be engaged as well!

The only problem I have with the whole engagement thing is being a fiancée. I hate the word with a Jerry Springer like passion and will have to come up with an alternative for the ‘look, drool, but don’t touch’ state. So far the possibilities are; ‘Beyoncé to be’ – which might be a problem if this magical he is expecting a transformation of black bootylicious proportions, then there's ‘three colours off-white’ for my pasty complexion, and ‘oops, missed me by that much.’

Now all I have to do is find the perfect dress, caterer, and a little something called a groom.

Ms seeking-Mr-Fabulous M.

Wooooooooooooooosh!

I can’t believe another whole week has skipped by and I didn’t even get a chance to do the dishes! At this rate there will be no Mr Bond waiting for me at the end of the rainbow because I’ll be looking more like Oldfinger than Pussygalore!

Unfortunately the quest for a better life / job / legs / and or neverending packet of Tim Tams was once again put on hold for the usual life / boring job / aching legs / and a spiralling Arnott’s induced debt.

And in the middle of all this global credit squeeze, here I am just wanting a peck and a hug. It should be made purrrfectly clear that my rates are reasonable, GST is included, and if things were to get a bit frisky, then I’m fully prepared with three varieties of condoms. The only problem I can foresee is with the latex having disintegrated from being ten years beyond its expiry date, although to be honest, its getting to the stage where I wouldn’t mind being in a position where I was subjected to a Sexually Transmitted Debt. This magical other could have half of the nothing I have. Half of my quarter lived life. Half of my twentieth of a house deposit. And half of my page one of the three hundred page to do list.

But to be fair, he could have both halves of the dishes.

Ms fabulously-soapy-with-tepid-dishwater M.