During the past little while I've been doing some onsite editing and proofreading work for one of my clients. It's a nice break from eating bonbons and wearing pyjamas all day, so all's good.

Except for the heinous crimes of the lazy stapler.

We're dealing with documents that have about a gazillion versions, so the production team helps us keep track of which ones to proof by stapling old copies together and leaving the latest version loose. Then we can flip back through the old copies if we need to check anything.

Sounds pretty darn simple when you think about it, right? Wrong.

We get
- pages stapled in the wrong order,
- random sheets upside down,
- the ever-popular freaky-weird staple that didn't go in properly and catches on everything, including the new sweater you're wearing,
- the "oops, forgot to staple it" situation where you aren't sure of which version to check and
- the staple in the middle of the document, so page-turning is impossible.

I had no idea that there are people in North America so inept at stapling. How on earth did this happen?

Isn't stapling part of the school system curriculum? Aha! Maybe that's the problem right there. Do I need to contact the creators of Schoolhouse Rock to create a new jingle and cartoon to celebrate good stapling?

Oh, you know what's coming, don't you?

Staple It All Together
(sing to the tune of Love Will Keep Us Together)

You, you can keep it together
Use a stapler whenever
Mul-ti-ple pages come along
They all belong
Don’t mess around
You are holding it wrong
Just stop [stop], put it on a surface
Stop [stop], or it will be worthless
Just hold on tight and staple it all together...


This is way too much fun...must remember to breathe between giggles.