A quickie:

 

Recently I was making some repairs to a piece of furniture, using our antique staple gun to reattach a loose back.  And wouldn’t you know, the stapler ran out of staples.  Couldn’t find any around the house.  So, off to the local hardware store…in my everyday women’s stirrup pants outfit and ballet flats, carrying my purse.  I asked the young lady at the checkout counter where to find them.  She told me, and said “I’ll have someone meet you in aisle 10, Ma’am.”  “Thank you so much, Miss.” 

 

As I stood there, blankly staring at the old staple gun and trying to figure out how to open it, a 20-something young man approached. (Bear in mind that the staple gun was probably 30 years older than the clerk, and did not have any staple info on it.) “May I help you, Ma’am?” 

 

So I asked him if he could find some staples that will work.  And after having struggled to get it open, I couldn’t resist saying I couldn’t get it to open either, but didn’t want to break a nail.  Which got a laugh out of him as he worked.  It took trying about 10-12 different sizes of staples, before finding one which fit.   That consumed almost 15 minutes…but I was so happy to have them, it didn’t really matter!  New staple guns cost about 3 to 5 times what the pack of staples did.

 

At the checkout counter, the clerk omitted gender-specific terms.  No problem with that approach: the good news is that it was another day during which I didn’t hear the dreaded “S” word!

 

Mandy