Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Paper clips

I do my best to concentrate in my office, but sometimes it's difficult. Students I've never seen will stand at my door asking if I have a paper clip. I ask a friend: can you imagine when we were students asking a professor for a paper clip?

I can. I am standing at a door. A professor selects a paper clip from a desk drawer and shoots it into the air. The clip misses and flies past me, faster than light, into the hallway of the future, where it plinks against the floor. The plink travels at the speed of plinks to the ears of some students walking in that future, on that floor. A paper clip: just what they need.

And now I can get some work done.

comments: 4

Elaine Fine said...

There you have it. Wouldn't it be great if we could all travel through time on our paper clips? Beats a bedknob.

Michael Leddy said...

Another childhood classic I missed.

Paper clips would be better than those balky time-travel machines too.

Anonymous said...

I get random students who ask to borrow a stapler all the time. I've taken to keeping it in a drawer and saying that I don't have one, when they ask.

Michael Leddy said...

Addy, you might point them here: Staple!