Staples

Staples
By Beth Cortez-Neavel
She had too many staples, she decided.
They just sat there on her cluttered desk
in her tiny apartment
in their little blue box
taking up space.
“Fuck,” he said,
sitting desperate in his spacious flat downtown
holding his final college essay
ever.
“I just ran out
of staples.”
Later, at the convenience store,
He complained to the clerk:
“You know that pack you buy at the beginning of freshman year?”
Yeah, she said.
The package comes with 500 staples.
“You think,” he said,
“you’d never use that many staples.”
I know what you mean, she said.
“But here it is,” he said.
“Last week of senior year,
and now I have to go buy a whole new pack.”
She looked at him in pity.
They’re down aisle five, she said.