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First I must start by saying WHY I typed this. My Geometry teacher was joking around one day and told us to type up a 3-Page essay on a paperclip. Being bored I wrote and typed up a 4-Page essay on the history of the paperclip using random facts I thought up in my head that aren't true. The result is this essay. I handed it in to my teacher the next day, he read it aloud to the class, and I got 25 extra credit points for my troubles. I think I spent a little too much time on it... I even took the time to find a paperclip to put it together with instead of a stapler.


The paperclip is a tool that I believe we should use and respect everyday. We never give it the respect that it deserves though. It keeps papers together (for free I might add) and it tries as hard as it can to hang on to paper. In this essay I will go over the history of man’s most humble product known only as the paperclip. I will go over the paperclip’s life starting with the birth of the paperclip and going all the way to how it will stop the asteroids from hitting this planet in the year 2807.
The paperclip started out as a tool that was meant to attach to a pronged stick to help hunt for wildlife back in the Stone Age. Paperus L. Clipus created it from hardened Tyrannosaurus Rex intestines. The tool was essentially a modern age slingshot except for that fact that the hardened Tyrannosaurus Rex intestines did not make the greatest tool for the desired purpose. For creating such a failure of a hunting tool Paperus was executed in the classic Stone Age style of smashing the skull of the person to be executed.
The next revolution in paperclip technology did not occur until the Middle Ages. Paperclips were often used to keep scrolls to stay in a closed position, but due to creases appearing on scrolls from the invention it was an invention that was discarded for the much more efficient rubber band. Since this day the paperclips and rubber bands became mortal enemies with each other and the relationship caused many minor rebellions and a future war.
Since paperclips were no longer used for keeping scrolls closed and people did not wish to be wasteful they decided to give them out to prisoners for entertainment purposes. While some prisoners used the paperclips to drill holes in brick walls to put up scrolls from home the more dangerous prisoners had taken their paperclips and used them as stabbing implements resulting in what is known as the biggest prison break of all time. A total of 4000 prisoners broke out of the prison in the end. Paperclips were removed from prisons immediately as a result.
After being banned from prisons the paperclips had found more uses. The richer people of the world found wooden toothpicks to be more of a tool for peasants. These people found paperclips in dumpsters, unfolded them, and dipped them in gold. This created an appealing golden toothpick that was used by many. The metal of the clips often dug into teeth as they picked. Soon a knight returning from a quest returned home to find out about the new toothpick. He noticed how it drilled into teeth and decided to use it for good. Using teeth from a person’s mouth he drilled holes into them to see the inside of teeth and how they decayed over time. His apprentice, Ned Sitt, finished the knight’s studies after the knight died from poison that was in his wine. Ned Sitt soon used the knowledge on tooth decay and found ways to prevent it. He became the world’s first dentist, but he was later executed for poisoning the knight who had taught him his ways. As the years went by more conventional ways of dentistry were invented and the paperclip was once more obsolete.
Soon paper scrolls also became obsolete and a greater technology reigned. This technology is known as flat paper. With the new revolution in paper the paperclip found its way back into the lives of people and became the dominant paper holding device of the world. Rubber bands were irritated and started a rebellion which later increased in proportions and became a full out war. The alignment of human and paperclip kind allowed the paperclips to pull through and defeat the rubber bands in the War of 1872. Ever since the end of the war the rubber band’s popularity has been decreasing.
In the 1900’s a new revolution in paper holding technology would arrive that would lower the paperclip population considerably. In the mid 1900’s a man named Al Step found a new paper holding method and dubbed them staples. Using a tool known as a stapler they would grab on to paper like no previous paper holder had ever done before. Staplers became incredibly popular and left the paperclip behind in the past. The staplers continued to rule the world of paper holding until the year 2543 where the paperclips made a comeback.
Students at a school had a history class and the famous paperclip was featured in the class. Some students loved the courageous paperclip so much that they searched for the rumored paperclip landfill in Mexico that was filled to the brim with paperclips. The students succeeded in their search. With various robotics classes they were able to create an autonomous robot from various wiring techniques. The rest of the robot was made entirely out of paperclips. The named it the Clipbot after it’s father, Clipping J. Bottington the third. The Clipbot went on to dominate in many robotic battles and it eventually became such a war veteran that it gained its own Artificial Intelligence that rivaled that of most humans.
After a certain point in time the Clipbot’s intelligence was too high. It remembered its history and how staplers used to be the dominating paper holding product. The Clipbot went out and pillaged cities to find and destroy all staplers. It soon knew it had gone insane, and due to a program malfunction it shut itself down until reactivation.
The Clipbot had been reactivated in the year 2806, one year before the asteroid strike of 2807. The humans needed help to stop the asteroids that had migrated from the asteroid belt between Mars and Earth and the Clipbot was the most intelligent robot known to man. The Clipbot trained itself using techniques from the great war hero Captain Thomas Falcon. The Clipbot gained the ability of telekinesis and super strength from the training. The Clipbot flew out of Earth’s atmosphere on October 4th, 2807. He used his physical and mental powers to destroy the incoming asteroids, but he had perished in all the chaos. A memorial was put up in Neo New York Square on the 3rd anniversary of his attack: October 4th, 2810. That statue was the last time the paperclip is ever seen in any importance in history.
That is why the paperclip is an important part of history. It had a dark past with many failures, but it is such a historic figure that I believe it must be remembered. It is one of the greatest objects ever created by man. I hope the memories and wishes the paperclips had will be remembered for as long as life is on Earth.


Notes on essay:
I had to put a Captain Falcon reference in there... So I did.
Ned Sitt and Al Step are anagrams for Dentist and Staple respectively.

Wow. That's all I can say.

Ehhh... that's very... Informative?