Office Supplies, Continued
“Don’t go nuts in there.”
It’s like they know me or something, Tracey thought. Still, they gave her the corporate card and sent her to Staples and only said they needed stuff for an office. all the stuff and bits and pieces that would make an office work. A real live, in-person office with people typing on keyboards and the soft whirring of a coffee machine, and a printer that never works and that everyone always complains about. A copy machine that you could program from your desk, but no one ever does because the software is buggy and it’s just nicer to walk over and talk to people anyway.
So, paper. Just decent copy paper. The recycled kind because Tracey cares about the planet — or she knows that’s a thing that she should do and recycled things are — better? Somehow?
They told her not to worry about ink and toners and all the things that go inside to make the copy machine work — the equipment people would take care of that. But something to write with, something to make marks on all those copies of things so people can carry them back to their desks and type in all the changes on their computers and drop the papers into the recycle bins at their desks — so the recycled paper can become paper again. Twice-cycled paper. Is it an infinite loop of paper? And if so, why are they so worried about trees on all the commercials.
Pens. And highlighters. And Sharpie markers in at least four different colors. Tracey limits herself to black and red pens, but does decide that for this prudence, she deserves to get the good pens. The gel ones with the little rubber sleeve that rests right against your knuckle. The ones that write so smoothly, so clearly, it would be impossible not to take anything they said seriously. She thinks of that long ago sign in a long ago break room written with a sad old Bic Stic — CLEAN YOUR DISHES PLEASE. No one ever cleaned their dishes. Why would they with such a sad, unfortunate sign?
Sticky notes. Tracey fills the front basket of her cart with memo size, standard size, tab size sticky notes in all the bright colors that are not yellow. Yellow sticky notes mean this is a boring place, a place where people are afraid to think outside the box, and where they are so cheap they won’t even have decent pens that could write on other colors of sticky notes.
Tracey pauses in front of a display of planners and planner refills. She picks up a full size binder, brownish-red leather with a little embossed logo in the bottom corner. She opens it and tests out the binder rings inside. Open. Close. Open. Close. So smooth, and so easy to open and close. She could work it even if she got carpal tunnel or hurt her wrist in the lid of the copy machine or something. She holds in one hand over the shopping cart, pauses with it mid-air, then swings her arm around and places it back into the rack. She slowly walks away from the planners, hearing the smooth click of the binder rings in the sound of her hard-sled shoes on the floor.
All those small things that hold things together or attach things to other things — there must be a name for this category, Tracey thinks. If she were in a sewing store, she would call them “notions.” Tracey hasn’t been in a sewing store since the formal dress disaster of her second year of college. She shudders as an image of blue satin teases the edge of her memory. She navigates to an aisle filled with baskets of things, things hanging on hooks, small bits of things tucked in neat rows on shelves at the level of her knees. She holds a box of paper clips on her palm until the cool plastic matches her own body’ temperature. She runs her hand over the staplers until she finds one that fits just right. She puts the last three in the cart, along with a box of staples, binder clips, a little tray that holds bits of paper, a ruler, scissors — everything she can think of that would make this in-person office work again.
Tracey turns towards the registers at the front of the store. She is nearly there when she makes an abrupt u-turn, a red flush climbing up her neck. Three hole punch. She nearly forgot. She finds the three-hole punch and makes her way back to the registers. She unloads the cart in stages as the cashier swipes everything over the scanner and into a large plastic bag. A couple of times, she thinks maybe the cashier pauses, looking pointedly towards the self-checkout, but maybe this is just her imagination.
“I have so much stuff! I’m sorry,” Tracey says, with her best front office smile.
The cashier nods and continues to swipe.
“I mean, you never think about what goes into making a whole new office, right? From the ground up? We’ve been at home for years and now — well — all this stuff!”
The cashier looks up briefly, raises one eyebrow and continues to swipe.
“It was so weird, right? When we all did our jobs from home?” Tracey leans forward. Leaning forward is the way to show you are engaged and warm.
The cashier pauses briefly with a three-ring binder dangling from her hand. “Some of us still had to go to work.”
Tracey feels the hot flush creeping up her neck. She fumbles with the corporate credit card, rubbing it between her fingers. “No, I mean, yes, I mean of course you did. And it was so . . important . . .so . . . essential . . .what you were doing. I mean, thank you. And we couldn’t have survived. I mean, this whole thing wouldn’t be possible without — just — thank you.”
The cashier shook her head and continued to swipe. Tracey dropped the corporate credit card and spent several minutes fumbling to pick it up from where it had landed, flat on the floor near the cart’s back wheels. She made a mental note to start taking care of her nails again. Cutting them this short made sense when she was just at home, but now she realized she would need them again for things like picking up dropped credit cards, or tapping on the ends of a counter while she waited for her purchase to be rung up. She straightened up, clutching the card tightly in her hand.
The cashier mumbled the total as she put the last item — a box of brightly colored push pins — into an overstuffed bag. Tracey held out the credit card. The cashier nodded towards a small terminal and Tracey fumbled the card into the slot. There were deep ridges in her palm from where she clutched the card. Tracey signed and retrieved her card. She carefully placed the overflowing bags back into the cart and pushed everything out to her car.
At least she remembered to have the car detailed. When she opened the trunk, the clean black insides made her smile. It was perfect, not even a piece of dirt or cat hair or anything. She fastened the net across the front of the trunk and lifted the bags over, taking care to tie together the handles of each bag before she moved on to the next one. The last thing she would want is some stray box of pins or paper clips rattling around in her trunk driving her crazy until the next time she had a reason to open it.
Tracey returned the cart, stacking it neatly with the others. She got into the front seat of her car and fastened the seat belt. Tracey put both her hands on the steering wheel and froze. She felt the blood leave her face. Her whole body went cold and she started to shiver. She glanced up into the rear view mirror and realized there were tears streaming down her face. Tracey dropped her hands and leaned forward into the steering wheel. She cried until a small wet spot formed on the front of her trousers, until she couldn’t breathe through her nose and the little bit of mascara she put on in the morning was washed completely away.
Tracey started the car and drove slowly back to the office. She drove in silence, with no conscious awareness of herself or the route she took to get there. As she pulled into the parking lot, she saw Ezra and Pete standing on the walk outside the building door. Ezra waved when he saw her car and pointed vigorously to a spot just next to the door. Tracey pulled into the spot and popped open her trunk. Ezra and Pete walked to the back of the car and started pulling out bags.
