Staples

Upon arriving at my home stay two weeks ago, I was lacking some basics like shampoo, soap, a hair dryer, paper, a water bottle, etc., so Annie and I headed to El Corte Inglés, the department store that has everything. When I say everything, I mean everything. This place is a combination of Super Target, Macy's, Home Depot, and your local furniture store on steroids. With seven floors of merchandise, you can buy asparagus, a Burberry scarf, and a mountain bike all in one stop. You pay extra for the convenience, but at that point I really could not have cared less. It was close to the apartment, and I just wanted to be able to shower properly.

Needless to say, your first El Corte Inglés experience can be a bit overwhelming. Finding what you need is a bit of an adventure. The last thing on my list that I finally found was a mini stapler for on-the-go assembly of essays and whatnot. I found a tiny green one, grabbed a package of staples, and was on my merry way. Once back in my room about to staple a paper together, I ran into a slight issue. The staples I had bought were much too wide to fit into the stapler slot. Huh?

I thought, "What gives? How are the staples too big?" It turns out that staples here come in a variety of sizes in accordance with different sizes of staplers, and I had not chosen correctly. I also had no idea what size I needed because I had thrown the stapler packaging away. So, I had to return to El Corte Inglés the next day to find the corresponding staple code on the stapler packaging and then buy the correct size of staples. The mini stapler was nowhere to be found, so I tried to explain my dilemma to a sales clerk. She understood me fairly well, but before she could help me, a man nearby chimed in and started to explain to me that the sizes of staples varied and that I needed to know what kind of stapler I had. Yes, yes, I know…but he didn't let me get a word in edgewise and just repeated himself like I did not understand. 

Finally the sales clerk jumped in and took me over to find what I needed. I scampered after her but thanked the man because, after all, he had only been trying to help me out. I appreciated the gesture. The sales clerk and I found the right kind of staples, and upon returning to the apartment I triumphantly fit the mini staples into the mini stapler and stapled the pages of my essay together. I have never been so grateful for standardization back home.