Pack Ratting Red Red Sharpener

To ring in 2007 I undertook some major home-office/recording-studio cleaning last night in the hopes of stemming the frequent avalanches of stuff that occur whenever I place anything on or walk past my desk. Because, gosh darn it, if my work desk can be organized, so can my home desk.

My desk cleaning reminded me of just how much of a pack rat I truly am. Behold: Tiny boxes that held small Christmas presents four years ago. The extra buttons to every Express shirt I’ve ever bought (and that’s a lot of buttons). Six year old pens.

Think about that. I had pens from 2000! Six year old pens that I refused to throw away because they’re from the time VW set up a tent on campus and they gave me a bag of shwag for standing on a table in the middle of the event and singing I’m a little teapot (as if that was a challenge for me; I probably would have done it naked).

My desk cleaning also lead me to a moment of reflection on my red Panasonic pencil sharpener.

You see, my red Panasonic pencil sharpener has been with me since third grade. It used to sit next to the dining room table in my childhood home. It came with me to college, and survived all three of my apartments.

It might not be very sexy, it might be as heavy as a brick, but after seventeen years of use the darn thing still works perfectly. By contrast, I’ve been through three separate sharpeners in the past year at the office.

I guess they don’t make them like they used to.

(Yes, you do see Rogue in the foreground of that shot. She’s not quite as old as the Panasonic, but she’s survived all the same locales – in fact, when I first got my webcam in 2001 I believe she spent a day on-camera perched outside of my window, searching for injustice to fight.)