3.4 The One About My Desk

I love my desk.

I love desks in general.  I always wanted one growing up.  It seemed so romantic, the idea of pounding away on my own typewriter on my own desk in some fictionalized fourteen year old girl’s world.  What I was pounding away on was my uncle’s massive red IBM hunk of metal that engaged the letters if I so much as looked at them while I sat at the dining room table at three in the morning.  (During the summer, people.  I dutifully went to school like everyone else.)

It was still bliss.

But not quite the same.

The first desk I ever got was in my second year of university.  There wasn’t even a question about whether I was going to get one or not, it was what kind.  I found my jewel at the University Plaza Zellers in Windsor.  It was that late 80’s/early 90’s pseudo-but-not-really light brown woodgrain ‘colour’.  It had two sets of cupboards, one on top, one on the bottom.  It had a small shelf running along the perimeter of the whole thing so it sort of looked like an entertainment centre, where you stick your tv in the little hole.  That shelf was the home to various inspirational items over the years from my dictionary, my Darkwing Duck and Data action figures to my goldfish, Spot.  $115 dollars later, I jauntily drove it home in my red Chevette Scooter (an inheritance from my uncle who, that summer, walked into our living room, held out the keys and said “I’m getting a van.  Who wants my car?”.  Aside from the fact that my sister was slow on the draw, I had my licence and she didn’t.  Logical, but she was older than me and not impressed.) and my roommates helped me lug it inside and somehow put it together.  I always thought we looked like a commercial, where you cut out every few seconds to show the progress of the desk as it was being built: us tearing open the box, Leanne struggling with the drill, me with that extra piece of wood they always put in the box making you think you’ve forgotten something.

That desk stayed with me for maybe twelve years, and when my boyfriend moved in, he wanted his desk.  I actually don’t remember what I did with mine.  I think I donated it.  I remember being able to get it into two pieces for easy re-assembly and thanking it for years of service.  And three years later, when we broke up, I found myself stuck with this soulless, silver and blue, ginormous IKEA nightmare.  It was massive. There wasn’t enough space in my room for it.  It was great to spread things out on, but it was more like a table with one self on it.  Again, I don’t know where it wound up going.  I think my dad sold it at a garage sale, so I’m sure someone is happy with it.  But once again, I went on a hunt for a new desk.  I dragged my sister around to a bunch of stores (she was the one with the car now), but whenever someone asked what I was looking for, I was never sure.  I just knew I’d know it when I saw it.

And I saw it.

At a Staples Business Centre out in yahubitzville.

It was perfect:  the left side was an open desk, and the right side had five small cubbies, a proper cupboard, two shelves, a ‘landing’ and a file cabinet at the bottom.  The desk, the cupboard and the cabinet were a darker, not quite cherry looking wood.  The rest was black. I wanted it.  And it was on sale.  Naturally they couldn’t find one.  But I was stubborn.  This desk and I were meant to be.  I needed it.  By the time they were able to locate one, they almost didn’t take my coupon.  And my delivery day came and went without a delivery.  But when it finally got here, I was in heaven.  I spent seven hours putting it together by myself: one woman, a ton of wood, screws, screws, screws and one manual.  My knees ached.  My electric screwdriver quit on me (for some reason my screwdriver has to be ‘charged’ and won’t work if it’s merely ‘plugged in’.  Talk about uppity.)  The Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon helped.  And I almost killed the whole thing when I was sliding it to my room to finish it there.

I’ve had that one for four years.  And I still love it.  I look at it as a sort of an inspiration to me.  A rebirth after a hard breakup.  Something new that was just me and just for me.  And now it has a new home:  my office.  It looks great.  And I feel much less like a university student now that it’s out of my bedroom.

The office itself is a disaster.  I have random things on the floor while I try to decide where everything goes.  I need another filing cabinet and a bookshelf or storage unit of some kind.  Two beautiful white boards are awaiting purchasing at an office supply store near me for my use.

So work needs to be done.

But the desk is here, fabulous as always.

And it’s my one thing I wouldn’t do without.

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