I came back into my dorm room feeling alright. My shoes were clean and the son was out. The girl I asked out didn‘t tell me she was busy. Everything was great. Hell, I was even lucky enough that my roommate, Mitch, wasn’t in the room.

I had no intention of doing homework so I logged into my computer to play some gangster rap music and chill out. Right after I pressed play on some old school Tupac, that little annoying paper clip that’s supposedly an office aid for Microsoft Word popped up.

“Your mouse seems to be working properly,” the paper clip informed me.

“Well, thanks,” I said out loud having no idea what was to come. I tried to right click on it to close it but the menu didn’t come up and the paper clip went away after a few seconds. I had the volume turned up pretty loud and about a minute later I was leaned back with my eyes shut when I heard WHOOSH!

“Your productivity is decreasing are you okay?”

My first reaction was to examine my crotch. “Well, everything seems to be in order.” Again Clippy disappeared. I opened up another tab to pay my bills and WHOOSH!

“Your typing speed is below average.”

“Now, I’m pissed.” I pressed F1 because that’s what usually brings up the paper clip in word and you can tell it to go away. WHOOSH!

“Your F1 key appears to be functioning properly.”

“GO AWAY!”

Every minute or so, WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

With my day ruined I turned off the music and closed the internet, bills unpaid, and climbed into my bed to sleep. WHOOSH!

I don’t know what it said but that meant I forgot to turn down the volume. Mitch walked in. “SHUT UP!” I yelled at Clippy.

“Your mom’s a crack whore,” he said casually.

“Great, now there are two things I despise in my room. You and Clippy.”

WHOOSH! I looked at the screen.

“Would you like me to go away?”

I sprung out of bed and moved my mouse over the yes button just as he disappeared. I swore unintelligibly for a while.

“Did you put Clippy on my computer?”

“What do you mean?”

I explained everything to him.

“Wow, he talks better smack than you do,” Mitch said after seeing Clippy pop-up a few times.

“Only because he doesn’t have ears.”

Neither one of us knew what to do so we figured the best possible solution was to get in bed and go to sleep. I FORGOT THE STUPID VOLUME AGAIN!

Every few seconds WHOOSH! And to add insult to injury Mitch laughed hysterically every time he heard it despite the fact it was preventing him from sleeping which is the only thing he’s good at.

“Did you put this on there?” I asked.

“No,” he squeezed out in between his laughing.

Quite a few loud F-Bombs later I got out of bed and for whatever reason tried to pull up Word to see if I could get rid of Clippy. WHOOSH!

“Your keyboard is dirty. You should clean it.”

“You’re a jerk but your probably right.” I grabbed a towel and wiped it down. “WHERE THE HELL IS WORD!”

It wasn’t on my desktop, it wasn’t in the start menu, I couldn’t find it in My Computer, I COULDN’T FIND IT ANYWHERE! MY ANGRY YELLING WAS TURNING ME INTO THE GUY FROM POWER THIRST! Whoosh…

I’ve got a computer with a paper clip and no Word. How am I supposed to type my assignments? Do I have a virus? Am I going to have to buy another computer? I’m a college student; I can’t afford that. Finally, I did a search for Word in the start menu. I found it, but I also found a file titled ‘Readme’. So I got sidetracked and opened it. A window popped up.

YOU’VE BEEN CLIPP’D! I continued to read the bit on how “Clippy” is the new hilarious way to prank someone and blah, blah, blah.

I punched Mitch in the face.