I am constantly finding odd shaped pieces material lying around. Often, I have no idea where they came from. The most insidious of these objects fall in that grey area between vital cog and piece of scrap. At first glance (and the second and third), I can neither tell where they belong or how important they may be. (The art of determining a mystery object’s likely value is something I don’t feel like describing right now.) There’s a place in our house for these odd fragments of technological mystery, whichever horizontal nook or cranny that happens to be closest when I discover it. We’ve had several odd pieces of plastic lying around the perimeter of the kitchen counter that have been waiting to be claimed by their rightful owners – for years.

Enter my wife, the world’s foremost expert on clutter extermination. Each new piece of seemingly useless plastic collected on the counter sends my wife one step closer to a 12 step program. “Joooooohn! What is this?” “I have no idea, but DON’T throw it away. I might need it.”

Sure I will.

I can’t help myself. You never know when such an item will turn out to be a missing foot from my iBook. I’ll bet you didn’t know iBooks had feet, did you? Who hasn’t had the dream where you take apart the malfunctioning electric juicer, only to recognize the missing part as something you threw away the day before trash day?

Yeah, that one’s rough.

So there I was at work this morning. I came across a tiny, cylindrical piece of plastic on my desk. Without thinking, I did something that goes against everything I stand for – I tossed it over my shoulder. Alright, tossing crap on the floor doesn’t go against EVERYTHING I stand for, but work with me here. You’re a reasonably intelligent person. You know what’s coming next, as soon as it left my hand I saw what it belonged to. Thirty-three years of training and practice, flushed right down the crapper. I just don’t know what’s got into me. It’s just a prayer for the dying, for the dying, Sorry, I got a little distracted by the iPod. What was I talking about again? Right, I was talking about why I wasn’t working, like I’m supposed to be, being at work and all,