Sharing

At college I learned how to use a binder. How dividers can be placed, how to pick out what goes where, when a topic has graduated to its own binder, when to shrink down to just one. How to title page, to colour coordinate, to spine label and to index.

I grew to like putting them together. I'd even say I loved doing it. Often, in english* to "love" something gets overused, but I'd say I loved it. Definitely a deep like.

I'd fall asleep with them spread out around my room, think about them first thing in the morning and bring them everywhere I went. I would be a wreck if I happened not to bring them with me, and the ones I didn't need to have with me I'd think about all day anyway.

So when someone at my office the other day talked about one of my binders, one that I created and packaged and beautified, as if it was the new guy's binder I just about died.


<i>There weren't even binders here when I arrived four months ago. He's been here three days and all of the sudden it's his?</i>

I clenched my fists for a moment to ease my jealous burst.

<i><b>It's just a binder. Everything will be alright. He leaves before you, and when he does you can put it back on you shelf. </b></i>

My hands relaxed and colour flowed back into the room.

For a moment I went back to what I was doing.

Then I heard my 3-hole punch crunch on a stack of paper which shouldn't have happened because it was MY 3-hole punch and it was sitting on MY des-


<b>Grrrrrr...</b>




*and I have no reference point from another language to work from; other than chatting to italian families and people who speak more languages than i
written
with the help
of
a thousand monkeys