General Question

tinyfaery's avatar

Where do all the paperclips go?

Asked by tinyfaery (44242points) September 4th, 2009 from iPhone

I put them on the paperwork. I get the paperwork back. I staple and put the paperclip back in my drawer. So why do I always need to replace my paperclips?

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16 Answers

Jeruba's avatar

Ahh…there is a wonderfully original article about this that I read many years ago in a small newsletter. It explained how paperclips reproduce in the darkness of drawers, mutate into wire coat hangers that appear unexpectedly in closets, and eventually reproduce again, evolving at last into bicycles—wild bicycles.

augustlan's avatar

They are with all the socks!

teh_kvlt_liberal's avatar

I took them!
If you want them back you must pay me a ransom in Toblerones

Jeruba's avatar

No. no, the socks are a different story.

seVen's avatar

The midnight gnomes take them to make things out of them like the frame of umbrellas or like bicycle wheel springs, than they ship their stuff through fedex or that wierd popular roaming gnome from travelacity.

rebbel's avatar

They get worn out (22%), they get destroyed by wannabe paperclip-artists (32%), they get stolen by people who have no (or empty) staplers (20%), they get lost (7%), they get stolen by paperclip-manufacturers (8%), they get used for what they were made for and stay there in that drawer for umpteen years (11%).

I am not sure though.

Sampson's avatar

They are with the the paperclip gnomes. The gnomes are trying to make a profit.

sandystrachan's avatar

The drawer people take them to make furniture and such likes . .

jbfletcherfan's avatar

I think they’re partying with the rubber bands!

robmandu's avatar

Well, after losing their full-time jobs as Microsoft Office Assistants, it appears that all of the paperclips have been relegated to act as pawns in practical jokes on unsuspecting Windows users.

La_chica_gomela's avatar

Most of them are right here!, and by most I mean at least 30 million paperclips.

I know so many people who had something to do with this project, and they are SO EFFING PROUD it makes me want to barf. 1) Paperclips are not people. 2) Could something more productive not have been done with the resources it takes to make/buy 30 MILLION PAPERCLIPS??!!!! Sorry for the tangent.

aphilotus's avatar

I systematically strew them about the city, wanding the streets, pockets full of ‘clips, tossing them like ethereal breadcrumbs.

True story.

gailcalled's avatar

@aphilotus: More like hailstones, it seems, if one were hit in the face by a dozen strewn paperclips.

bea2345's avatar

They accumulate in the top drawer of every desk I ever occupied during my years in the civil service.

bea2345's avatar

… and continue to accumulate…

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