Over a month ago a mystery prankster put a red Swingline stapler on my desk at a client site(also an ex-employer) where I’ve been spending a lot of time. I had been getting moved around a lot since I was a lowly contractor without a permanent work station and multiple people had joked with me being Milton from Office Space.

I questioned everyone I saw that day and everyone denied it. I was sure someone was lying but they were not!There was one person who I never saw because they were in meetings the entire day. The mystery gift giver was the one and only Danny Wang. With his ninja training from the Wang-Fu Dojo he was able to go undetected for over a month before he himself ended my suspense.

I got two pretty awesome presents yesterday…

The first was a red Swingline stapler. Anyone who’s seen Office Space knows the story of Milton and his red stapler. (For those that don’t, just go rent the movie or watch it on Comedy Central.) The story behind it is I have been working as a subcontractor for a few months for a place where I used to be an actual employee. Since becoming a subcontractor, my workspace is constantly moved almost daily between cubes, offices, and random tables. While I was in a meeting yesterday someone put a red stapler on my desk! I still have yet to figure out who put it there, and everyone I have asked has denied it. I’m not sure if it was intended as a gift or not but I am keeping it until someone asks me, “Have you seen my stapler?”.

The second gift was a black iPod classic(named “The bPod”) as an early Christmas present from my awesome wife. I have wanted an iPod for quite a while but had a few hangups. I was too lazy to rip all my CDs, I’m not usually an early adopter and iPods kept improving every year or so, and I tend to over-think any purchase above $10. Since the iPod Classic came out, and the iPhone/iPod Touch is a pretty huge leap, I figured it was about time.

Katie and I won a pumpkin carving contest today at Stever’s. There were actually two winners, one for technical skill (ours) and one for creativity. For our efforts we won a cupcake that said “BOO!” on it…I haven’t eaten it yet. If anyone is wondering, we used a stencil to do this…I really didn’t want to at first, but do to a lack of creativity we went with it.

In the past three years only one person has come to my door to trick-or-treat. Yet, I’ll still probably buy some candy this year…

Red Sox win, Redskins get demolished.