Staple Diet

Scheduled to take the minutes of a meeting, I roll up early to ensure the room is set up.
Some tables and chairs are stacked along one wall.
Unfortunately, there is insufficient furniture for the meeting.
Fortunately, additional tables and chairs are located in the storeroom off the main hall.
Unfortunately, the main hall is in use until precisely the moment the meeting is scheduled to commence.
Reluctant to disturb the group before I need to, I go into the office to fetch the paperwork.

I remember that the accounts and financial report have not yet been printed.
I log on to the computer
and open Gmail.
Nothing happens.
Close google.
Open Gmail again.
Open the document I plan to print.
Send to print.
There is no paper in the printer.
The printer is not a happy printer.
Refill the paper and resend to print.
The printer takes umbrage and fires out a blank sheet.
Remove the paper from the printer and talk nicely to it
reminding the paper that it can conquer its fear of the printer.
Replace the paper.
Press the reprint button.
It fires out another blank sheet, to prove the first was not a fluke
I send it to print again.
Just as the printer is poised to actually print, the computer decides it is going to shut down
as the main power lead is not plugged in.
I gambled that the computer would have sufficient power to print what I required.
I lost that gamble.
Find the computer lead and plug it in.
Restart the computer.
Persuade the computer that it is safe to restart
and that aliens are not going to attempt to devour its brains.
Once more the document is sent to print.
The printer spews out another blank page.
I try again.
Success.

I attempt to staple the pages together.
but the stapler merely mangles the staple
reforming it into a hideous distortion of its former self rather than an efficient paper fastening.
I remove the staple and try again.
Again a strangely manipulated piece of metal lies unrepentantly on top of the paperwork.
Third time lucky?
Nope.
I find additional staples in the desk drawer
ALL the old staples are rashly jettisoned.
I take a deep breath and pray
It staples!!!
I take my paperwork into the room where the meeting is happening.

In my absence, the tables have all been set up and are now neatly corralled by the chairs.
I am handed a sheef of papers including all the paperwork I have just printed.

I need not have bothered... but I do not mind,
because if I hadn't...I might not have had all of that which I required.