Staples



As a child of about nine years old I was told by some school friends that someone’s mother or father, I forget which, was planning to melt down staples and make the world’s largest staple in an attempt to achieve the Guinness world record for the largest staple. Thoroughly enthused, I set about collecting old staples, of which there were thousands, from unused patches of the classroom display boards. I can’t figure out why (or if) I was actually allowed to do this since it isn’t the least bit edifying and (if I remember correctly) we weren't allowed in the classrooms during lunch or breaktimes... but I certainly remember standing there for what felt like hours (but may only have been minutes) troubling my feeble young finger nails with the pluck-pluck-plucking collection of hundreds of staples, all the while day dreaming rapturously of the stardom I might perhaps attain with a possible mention in the Guinness book of records.

Nothing, as far as I know, ever came of it all.