The Hierarchy Within

Let Down by a Locker

I have recently been informed that I have an unusual medical disease - thankfully, although it is severe it's not fatal so I shall live another day to stare at others happiness and drown myself in artificial happiness. After some extensive lab research and blood tests, the disease was given a name: Stationery-addict-isis ... At first it sounded quite strange to me but I'd rather not argue with the doctors - clearly it is a legitimate disease and quite a rare and dangerous one too in the medical field ;) Due to the sudden acknowledgement of my well being and health, I think everyone needs to know ... Each item of stationery that sits either on your desk or in a pencil case, actually has unique character traits (duh) that are similar to the ones we find in our friends and the people that come into our orbit on a daily basis.

Pen - ordinary and stable, yet extremely familiar and always the same
Pencil and Eraser - Loyal and mostly reliable with the exception of needing to sharpen things up now and then, and it's always possible to erase every part of your mistake (unless of course you have a crappy eraser ... Or friend that is always reminding us of that mistake in a blurred and edited way)
Typex - Gets rid of mistakes no problem but at a price, you will always be able to see that the mistake was made
Highlighters - bold and neon to draw attention to points and make it hard to forget about
Fine liners - unlike the ordinary pens, these look ordinary but are actually vibrant and colourful which is why everyone loves them
Glue - those that seem invisible but actually hold everything together (there work invisible to the naked eye)
Scissors - they don't do it on purpose but they are so good at ruining everything without dirtying their own hands
Ruler (not the one on the hierarchy) - the people who would not stray from their given path no matter how much money is involved. Life is sorted from day 1 and nothing will stop them, bullying and all

After that dose of absurdity, has anyone ever been let down by an inanimate object? Yes it is a rather odd question but if you think hard enough you'll soon find that there are quite a few examples. That pen that ran out of ink 20 minutes into an exam and your other pens have mysteriously gone into hibernation. You're in the process of printing out an essay worth 50% of your grade when the printer suddenly decides that it's suicidal and shuts down mid-page. Dear printer, I understand your life is tough and suicide has been considered before but you decided to choose the very worst moment to emotionally break down and ruin your life and my own. After those examples, I'm pretty sure you have a clear idea of what I am jabbering about. The inanimate object that unknowingly aided in my continual humiliation was not a pen or a printer (although those have had their fair share at sharing my torture too) but was in fact a locker. Not an actual locker with a combination lock and small vents for my many admirers *COUGH COUGH* (do NOT exist!) to slip notes about their love. One of those grade school lockers that was actually a wooden shelf with your name sticky-taped across the top. Do you remember the days when anonymous Valentines were all the rage? It was the one opportunity in your childhood where you could screw up the courage to give a gift to your crush without them knowing it was you. Unfortunately the whole anonymous part didn't work out so well for me.

Of course I was crushing on a guy when I was 9/10 .... I mean didn't most of us have some kind of crush back then? Well mine was supposed to remain anonymous but I guess all the other people (and objects) involved in this ingenious plan didn't get the memo. I'd finally worked up the courage to leave a heart shaped chocolate and card in the locker of my crush, which I would quickly hide in his locker during lunch so no one would see me. An ingenious plan up until this point, the locker and crush did not cooperate here after. During our next lesson, he needed to get one of his books out of his bag and unfortunately, the cat was let out of it along with the book. He found my chocolate and told his friends about it, which wouldn't have been so bad if not for the fact that one of his friends ... Did not think much of me. After a short break, He announced to the whole class what I'd done and I was ridiculed once again but this time it was for having a small shred of romance.  Thank you very much locker! Well, at least I got over any romantic thoughts about lockers and secret admirers *COUGH COUGH* (do not exist for me). Hopefully the next time an inanimate object decides it is time for me to be humiliated, it won't be in front of my whole class