Denied

In order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.

MARK TWAIN

As those of you who have been following this will be aware, quite often it is from the tiniest, most innocuous and seemingly innocent beginnings that the greatest madness erupts in these chambers.

And so:

Here's me : "Do we have any more paperclips? I'm running out."

The Boss, in a manner that strongly suggests she's spoiling for a rumble : "No."

Here's me : "Well could you order some with the next stationery order?"

The Boss : "No".

Here's me : [sigh] "May I ask why?"

The Boss : "You don't need paperclips."

Here's me : [sigh] "I really do. I use a lot of them. And I'm running out. Please could I just have some paperclips?"

The Boss : "What are you using them for?"

Here's me getting steadily more uneasy : "To... clip... pieces of paper together... in files?"

The Boss, bizarrely very angry about this : "You should use staples."

Here's me, sucked in : "Well you see I use paperclips while the file is still coming together, then once it's finished, I remove the paperclip, and staple them."

The Boss, with an ugly air of malicious triumph : "You should have paperclips then."

Bollocks. She might have me here.

Here's me, it's a fair cop : "OK. I may have lost some during this process. Can I please just have some paperclips?"

The Boss : "No. I don't want you using paperclips any more. Use staples from now on."

Here's me, utterly caught in the web : "But.. while the file is coming together, I have to... perhaps insert other pages, and take pages out to fax them and so on... and if I leave them loose they'll get all muddled."

I'm gonna cry. This is so unfair. It's just not right. I just want some fucking paperclips. Please just give me some paperclips you evil maniac.

The Boss, now inordinately pleased with herself : "You can't leave them loose. You'll have to staple them, then take the staples out each time."

Here's me : "But... but.. that's a bit... um.. mad?"

The Boss : "Don't be carky with me."

Here's me : "Carky?"

The Boss has said it now and is damn well going to stand by it : "Carky."

Here's me : "Carky? Are you calling me carky?"

The Boss : "Don't be key with me."

Here's me : "Wha???"

It's the little, tiny things in life, the small, insignificant things, that make people insane. I'm just sayin'.