Saturday, September 02, 2006

A Case for the X-Files

Whilst I was preparing my wee office at home in order that I might actually "move in", I came across a Papermate Comfortmate Stick pen which had been residing in silent patience on my desk. (Do you like how I inserted a link to Papermate's site, just like Keltie does?) It had been sitting there for some time, amidst all sorts of schnazzum and frazzum, for some time while I put together some Flarkes from IKEA and unloaded box after box of books and movies, took a trip or two, and was otherwise lazy and procrastinatious*.

Upon picking it up today, however, I immediately realized that something. was. not. right.

It was covered in some sort of mysterious sticky residue. My first instinct was to scream, flush my hands with water, induce vomiting (which would have broken my legendary record for vomitlessness), and call the centre for poison control. Instead (and, in retrospect, rather curiously) I decided to rinse the pen off. After all, these Papermate Comfortmate Stick pens aren't a dime a dozen. (Apparently they're $7.06 a dozen at Staples Online.) Upon washing and drying the pen (why on earth did I wash and dry the pen?) I noticed that most of the comfort had worn off. Yes, the slightly rubbery surface texture which makes the Comfortmate so darn Comfortmatable was reduced.

Which begs the question: Was the mysterious residue actually the comfort itself, having metamorphosized while basking in the summer heat of my upstairs, or did the mysterious residue somehow take up residence on my beloved pen and eat away at the comfort like an insidious parasite? If the latter, where did it come from?

Needless to say, I may have trouble sleeping tonight.

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* procrastinatious (pro-kras-tin-A-shus): though not officially recognized as a word, it is my belief that this term, being an adjective to describe the state of mind in which one puts off some task until an indeterminate later time, should be. Consider its uses, such as "He was a rather procrastinatious individual." Or "As the demands of life began to overwhelm him, he grew more and more procrastinatious until at last he put off the one thing he couldn't afford to delay: the application of the brakes on his 1979 Chevy Nova." Please begin using this word immediately and in a variety of social and professional spheres until it gains in usage and becomes a recognized word.

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