Impersonal Assistance

Desk clutter reproduces. I'm sure of it. I can't tell which pages, paper clips, and other assorted crap is male and which is female; I've no clue if, similar to worms or the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, my office supplies can singularly produce offspring; I don't know if or how genetics are passed from one generation of sticky note to the next.

There was a carnival game growing up where the barker handed the rube three red discs, with which the mark was supposed to cover an oversized white circle in its entirety. Easiest game on the runway, requiring no skill or luck. Do it once and you should be able to do it every time.

I could never do it. Never in a zillion years. While I seem to remember reading something about fairness and how fixing games was illegal, I've lived a lifetime without hearing overwhelming support for carny ethics.

So here I sit in my cubicle, watching the useless paperwork spread, leaving little spots of formica visible. The movement is glacial, which is to say I never witness it, but the nightly evolution leaves less workspace every morning I arrive. Could there be busywork sprites, the paper-pusher's equivalent of cobbler's elves? If so, how can I appease them enough to leave me alone?

At the rate I'm going, my keyboard will soon disappear beneath a sea of memos and fliers. But even the memos are useless, the kind addressed to "All Staff" about dress code and parking garage closures. I fear the thought that something important might be buried within this fire hazard. Is it better self-preservation to search the mess or toss it all in a recycling bin under the hope that if it's so important, it will be resent? If so, how would the reminder (God help me if it's a final notice) swim to the surface so it could be seen?

I just located my rip-off-a-day calendar. Top date? Thursday, July 16. Eesh.