The "A Priceless Moment With Camille" Story

Camille and Tampah preparing for the cut.

It was an ordinary day.  My grand- daughter Camille and I are busily trimming "sticky notes" to the correct size for her 4th grade class.  Every year Carol and I take our grandkids to the store before school starts for the year to purchase their necessary school supplies.  Seems that the list that was given to each student in 4th grade, telling what items were their responsibility to supply at the beginning of school, included "sticky notes" that were to be 1 1/2" x 2" in size.  Well, that size is not one that is offered by all the local retailers such as Walmart, Kmart or Target.  So, as we did last year, we bought 3" square yellow "sticky notes" and hoped they would work.  They didn't!  This past weekend Camille and her sister and mom made a visit over Labor Day for a season ending pool party at my brother's house in Ephrata, PA.  During the three day visit Camille and I gathered together her "sticky notes" as well as "sticky notes" from quite a few of her classmates who also couldn't find them and walked them to my garage.  For you see, in my garage is a very large guillotine paper cutter that I use for trimming printed jobs that I do for the high school where I used to teach.  

Camille using the Guillotine paper cutter.

I still do the in-house printing for the school district and years ago, when the paper cutter was said to be too dangerous for the school, I bought the cutter and placed it in my garage.  Now they pay a user fee each time I have to use it to trim school district work.  Camille was excited to give it a try and with my careful assistance we were able to mark each pack of "sticky notes" and trim them so each of her classmates ended with double the amount that she brought with her.  We were able to get two 1 1/2" x2" notes out of each one.  And ..... she had a ball cutting them.  She actually was able to maneuver that large handle that controlled the blade across the notes all by herself.  Pretty impressive to say the least.  Her mom documented her cutting so she could share it with her class and teachers.  She was so excited.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.