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Do we have any of those…” Words were already spilling out of my mouth when I realized I had no idea what to call these things. “…little, round, metal, hoop, claspy …things?”
She just stared at me.
“You know, they’re like paperclips, but they open and close…” She shook her head, bewildered. “You clasp them through a hole in you paper…”
“I… have… no idea what you’re talking about.” She said. She orders all the supplies for the department… if she didn’t know what I was talking about… who could?
“They’re kinda like key rings, but they open? They’re… uh…”
She waited.
“Okay, okay… imagine a 3-ring binder, but without the… uh… binder. …and… just… one… ring?”
“Yeah. Still no clue.”
I was floundering underneath the weight of my own senseless adjectives. I considered drawing one, but I’m much better with words (as scary as that that might seem).
“They’re uh… round? And they clasp shut…”
Even ridiculous hand motions, pantomiming the opening and closing of the hoop, failed to bring any enlightenment for her.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you need.”
“Damn. If you saw one, you’d totally know what I’m talking about.”
Dejected, I went back to my desk. I felt like an idiot… I never intentionally put myself on the line like that.
Then, in a moment of inspiration I did a few google searches and finally stumbled upon a picture of one. I emailed her the photo, and instantly she knew what I was going on about. Yes, she had some. Pictures are worth a thousand words… and in this case, I think that might literally have been the case.
“So, what are they called?” I asked her.
“I have no idea,” she replied “I call them round thingys.”
“If I came in here asking for round thingys, would you have known what I wanted?”
“No… Probably not.”
After a bit of online research, I’ve discovered that they’re called “Loose Leaf Book Rings”. I feel slightly comforted that had I gone in there asking for them by name, she probably still would have looked at me as if I’d lost my mind and told me to “go sell crazy somewhere else.”
