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02 October 2006

Monday Chat: What's your favorite office supply?
Liquid Paper. I sniff it during stressful moments.
posted by jonmc 02 October | 09:08
I like: pens (previously discussed), paper clips (particularly plastic-coated bright-colored ones), binder clips, 3 x 5 index cards (in colors) and portfolio arrangements for holding loose documents.

I'm always attracted to vintage office supplies at yard sales and places like that. It's the boxes: the fonts, the simple bright bold utilitarian commercial art.

And then there's stationery...but that's maybe a different post. Sealing wax, engraved letterhead, and man do I desire an embosser.
posted by Miko 02 October | 09:13
I like composition books and spiral bound memo pads. They hold so much promise. And they're shiny and they smell good.
posted by iconomy 02 October | 09:17
The secretaries.
posted by Eideteker 02 October | 09:40
I like post-it notes. They have to be post-it brand. Even better the post-it flags.
posted by birdherder 02 October | 09:48
Little notepads. The plainer the better. I never use them. I just hold on to them.
posted by sciurus 02 October | 09:49
Binder clips. They're useful for so many things, and I like to play with them while I'm thinking.
posted by smich 02 October | 09:49
Post-it notes (but not too bossy!) and spiral bound notebooks, mostly.
posted by flopsy 02 October | 09:52
Does bubble wrap count as an office supply?
posted by agropyron 02 October | 09:53
And permanent markers. The smell is intoxicating.
posted by flopsy 02 October | 09:53
I like scotch tape. I love the smell of that stuff.
posted by LunaticFringe 02 October | 09:54
Only when it's used to wrap up workmates, agro.
posted by flopsy 02 October | 10:02
Box cutters and Irish whiskey.
posted by Divine_Wino 02 October | 10:07
Hands down - compressed air.
pffffffffffft!
posted by Hellbient 02 October | 10:07
That have staplers now that you barely need to press, and they do the staple action all by themselves. I'm kinda sad I have a paperless job, because when I was in charge of a huge stack, it totally would've helped.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero 02 October | 10:18
Ditto binder clips -- I especially like the colored ones they make now. Our office doesn't have those, so I have to swipe them from people upstairs.

If it still existed, I'd pick mimeograph ink. Now there's a wonderful smell.
posted by JanetLand 02 October | 10:20
I love all office supplies. Ironic, becuase I hate office work.
posted by Pips 02 October | 10:33
Oooh, yeah, JanetLand! And it was so nifty how the mimeographed paper was cold to the touch.
posted by Miko 02 October | 10:34
And such a beautiful soothing purple color.
posted by JanetLand 02 October | 11:02
Red staplers.
posted by deborah 02 October | 11:04
Hrm. The small binder clips, definitely. And colored file folders because i like to organize. Also the sharpies that have a fine nib on one end and a thick nib on the other.
posted by gaspode 02 October | 11:04
i like to organize

you need to come over to our apartment. there's plenty of stuff all over the place that needs organizing. It'd be like a Club Med for you.
posted by jonmc 02 October | 11:21
Compressed air is great, hellbient! Is it wong that I like to snap rubber bands against my wrist???
posted by rainbaby 02 October | 11:35
I like the binder clips too, I usually take two smallish ones and clip them together so that I can sorta fiddle with them while on the phone. As for writing implements, I always have 4-6 pencils on my desk. I don't like ink for the most part. I prefer to scratch with a pencil. Sometimes, I am lucky and I manage to score and nab myself a pencil sharpner that no one uses anymore.
posted by richat 02 October | 11:43
A stapler that works.
posted by mullacc 02 October | 11:46
I can never have enough pens.
posted by Joe Famous 02 October | 11:54
Folders, binder clips, and pens!
posted by safetyfork 02 October | 11:57
I take the binder clips home and use them for closing bags of chips and other things in the kitchen.
posted by pieisexactlythree 02 October | 12:18
Brass paperclips.
Pilot pens.
Blu-tac.
Letter openers.
STAMPS!!!!!! (THWUNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!)
posted by By the Grace of God 02 October | 12:25
Everything one needs to make a chapbook's readily available at Staples. Some years back, when the mood struck me, I did just that: linen paper, grey cardstock for covers, ink cartridges, an extra long stapler for saddle stitching that nearly broke my wrist. I put a little ad in Poets & Writers; someone in Minnesota has a copy.
posted by Pips 02 October | 12:50
Nice, Pips!

Love the extra long stapler. We have one at work.

We also have a cool spiral-binder-maker. I made my family some family-recipe cookbooks like that last year.

Also, the laminator. Mmmm, I love plastic laminated documents.
posted by Miko 02 October | 13:47
Also, the laminator.

I dunno. I'd be too tempted to laminate my underwear, my pets or myself.
posted by jonmc 02 October | 14:11
Rubberbands and tape. I went through a roll of scotch tape the fist week I got here, just messing around with it. Now I have to be careful not to use it up too fast...

...stupid dispenser, mocking me with it's pristine little strip of tape...
posted by muddgirl 02 October | 17:29
Oh, god, I love them all. Officeworks is one of my favourite stores and I could just wander up and down the aisles all day.

I should really get help, shouldn't I?
posted by dg 02 October | 17:35
Officeworks is one of my favourite stores and I could just wander up and down the aisles all day.

No, I don't think so. There's something sooo comforting about office supply stores. Second only to grocery stores in the feeling of security they offer.

My favorite work of contemporary fiction is Mark Helprin's A Soldier of the Great War. A few passages in that book talk about the protagonist's faith in his office supplies...he is headed off to the front in WWI, and he believes that if he orders and arranges his desk just so before leaving, he will be safe, and his family will escape harm, while he's gone.

I understand this.

posted by Miko 02 October | 22:56
Sharpie pens. They come in so many colors, and point styles, I find them irresistable.
posted by redvixen 03 October | 11:17
I read that book, Miko (as well as "A Winter's Tale", and "Memoir From Antproof Case").

I have to disagree with the grocery store thing, though. I feel very uncomfortable in grocery stores, and mostly try to avoid them; I think it's the lighting or something. I always get that lying-in-bed-awake-at-4-a.m. feeling - some sort of nameless dread and a sensation of floating away from the world.
posted by taz 03 October | 11:37
post-it notes...the colorful ones
posted by karim satasha 08 October | 17:34
Good Lord. (possibly disturbing) || The Sorrows of Young Werther.

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