Copyright 1996(c) 
 
             POINTY STUFF IS WORSE THAN CHUNKY STUFF 
               The Adventures of Ruby D. Begonia, 
              Freelance Temporary Legal Secretary 
                                 
     "Ruby, could you sharpen this pencil, please?" called the 
short guy. 
     "Sure," said a cheerful Ruby on her first day at the firm. 
She dutifully went to retrieve the pencil from his outstretched 
fingers and carried it down a steep flight of stairs in the home-
converted-to-office-space where she was temporarying. She sharpened
it to a nice point and returned it. 
     "Uh, Ruby," he said as she turned to go. 
     "Yes sir?" 
     "Could you make this point elliptical?" he asked, holding the
pencil aloft and squinting down its length. 
     "'Scuse me?" said a determinedly polite Ruby. "That would be
when you can't see the moon?" 
     "Heh-heh-heh," he chuckled. "That's an eclipse. I'm looking
for a pencil with a perfectly rounded point," said he. "See this
little sliver of wood here that's longer than the rest around the
tip? Could you sharpen it to a point?" 
     "Okey-dokey," said Ruby and took the pencil back. 
     Down the stairs she went again and re-sharpened the sharpened
pencil. She looked at it. It had a point. She checked all the way
round and didn't find even a sliver of pencil left poking up 
against the lead of an approximately rounded-to-a-point tip. 
     "Hey, bub, what's this shape," she asked a runner. 
     "Round," said he. 
     "Bingo," said Ruby and returned upstairs to deliver the 
pencil. 
     "Not quite, but close," he heh-heh'd like Jokey Smurf. Come
to think of it, he was about that size, too. Suddenly, the dreaded
recollection shrieked in Ruby's mind: SHORT LAWYER. RUN FOR YOUR
LIFE. 
     Ruby thought about the paycheck and forced a willing smile.
     "See," he said, pointing at the pencil tip, "how the lead 
slants at a slight angle rather than points? Tell you what, there's
a sharpener in the next building--you know, the annex next door?--
and it does a great job. Would you take it over there and sharpen
it?" 
     "Next door? Would that be downstairs?" she asked. 
     "And up again," he said. "Somebody over there can show you."
     Ruby went down the stairs, out the door and across the parking
lot. She entered the annex and didn't find a soul on the first 
floor. She climbed an even steeper-than-her-own flight of stairs
to the second floor and sure enough, the pencil sharpener was 
there. She used it. She went back down the stairs, out the door,
across the parking lot and up the stairs to the boss's office, 
whence she delivered the pencil. 
     "That's great," he enthused. "Was there a line?" 
     "A line? You mean like at the Tickle Me Elmo sale?" asked 
Ruby. 
     "Yeah, that's the best sharpener we've got. It's in constant
use," said he. 
     "No," said Ruby. "In fact, once I climbed the stairs and found
it by myself, I never did find anybody alive over there." 
     "Oh, good," said he. Opening a drawer, he dropped six 
unsharpened pencils into her hands. "Why don't you go ahead and 
sharpen these and that'll save us some time." 
     Ruby managed an obedient grimace. 
     "Must have a busy mouse in his pocket," she muttered on the
way downstairs, "'cause he bloody well ain't saving me any time."
     She trudged next door and up the stairs and sharpened the six
pencils. She returned, climbed the stairs and delivered them to 
him. He checked them and had her re-sharpen two of the six. This
time she didn't smile, but she went to sharpen the pencils. He 
accepted one and returned one. By the time Ruby had all six pencils
sharpened to his liking, it was time to go home. 
     "Good God, Sludge," she told her boyfriend that night, "he's
terminally short." 
     "That's why you make the big bucks, babe--'cause you can 
handle deefeecull," he said. 
     "Ain't there no difficult what throws files and curses, 
anymore? Are they all just teeth-grindingly anal? Is a concern with
pointy stuff to be my life's work?" Ruby asked. 
     "Seems like, don't it?" asked Sludge. 
     "Well, I ain't running them stairs sixty-two times a day," 
Ruby determined. "I know how to fix this guy's wagon." 
     Next time short stuff asked Ruby to sharpen pencils, she was
back in a whiz with all of them nicely rounded. 
     "Wow, how did you do that so fast?" he asked. 
     "Magic," said Ruby. 
     "We ought to put you in charge of pencil sharpening," he 
joked. 
     "Do I get my name and title on the door?" asked Ruby. If they
would pay him to sit around and critique how sharp the pencils 
were, it seemed perfectly reasonable to Ruby that they would hire
an expert pencil sharpener at this place. 
     Later that day he caught her sharpening somebody else's pencil
with her own pencil sharpener. 
     "They finally bought us one for over here?" he asked. 
     "S'mine," said Ruby. 
     "Yours?" he was surprised. 
     "Seemed like the easiest answer," Ruby explained. 
     "But, but, that's running on firm electricity," said he. 
     "It's sharpening firm pencils," Ruby pointed out. 
     "Yes, but it's an unnecessary expense when we've got a 
perfectly good one next door already using firm electricity. I'm
going to have to ask you to take that home, Ruby." 
     Ruby took it home.  
     "I want to pinch off his head like a nematode from a tomato
plant," said Ruby. 
     "You gotta work off that hostility, babe," said Sludge.  
     "Yeah," she agreed. "It's distracting. I'm so miffed at him
I'm afraid I'm gonna absent-mindedly come around a corner and trip
over him." 
     So Ruby went up and down stairs, sharpening and faxing and 
copying and then doing it again and then again.  
     "Hon, you're doing real well with this," said Sludge. "I can't
believe how smoothly you've adapted." 
     "Yeah," said Ruby, a gleam in her eye. "Look-it these calf 
muscles." 
     Ruby tensed her leg and revealed shapely, taut calf. 
     "Maybe this is it, Sludge," she said, eyes bright. "Maybe this
is what I was born to do--tame the anal. Ruby the anal avenger. 
Maybe I could get a costume, like Wonder Woman. I need something
real flash for avenging. Maybe bicycle stretch pants. In tulle."
     "I was thinking tiara," said Sludge. 
     "Perfect," said Ruby. "And a wand." 
 
                              -30- 
 
