The Trouble With the Clips

I reached up into a cupboard in the kitchen, which made my shirt scooch up a little, and a coworker said "Hey - what is that?"

Um, my tummy?

"The green thing. Do you have a binder clip on your pants?"

Oops. Outed.

Yes, I have a green binder clip holding my pants closed. They still zip up, but one hook fell off and then the other, so they don't really stay up otherwise. This happened months ago. I have both hooks, I just haven't sewn them back on. It's laziness, nothing else.

I love binder clips. They're up there with duct tape and chap stick as most useful products ever.

My problem with them, though, besides the fact that they enable me to be lazy with clothing repair, is that when I have a clip, a clamp, really anything blunt that can be fastened, well, I want to fasten it to something. Like a part of my body. It's not that I like pain - I hate it, in fact - it's just repeated and stupid curiosity.

A binder clip, for example. Like I haven't seen 50 million binder clips, but faced with one, invariably pick it up, examine it, and then wonder, will it hurt if I clip it to my finger?

Ow! Fuck! Yes!

A hair clip - hmm, let me clip it to my eyebrow...Ow! Fuck! Ow! So places that it hurts to clip a clip to: your finger, your toe, your eyebrow (very very painful), your cheek (sheer hell), your nose (excruciating).

I have a similar compulsion with those laser pointers. It's always, hmm, I wonder what it'd be like to shine this directly in my eye? Aaagh! Every damn time.

It's so lucky that I don't do a lot of presentations.