You’ve heard about the gift that keeps giving?

This morning’s essay is about the gift that keeps taking – the laptop I gave the Mrs. For Christmas.

Now that she has her very own computer, she wants her very own office. Which is fine by me. But is has turned out to be something of an expensive wish. Not to mention labor-intensive

Before I explain, let me back up a little:

A year or so ago she bought this cute little Mission-style desk at a garage sale. I spent days and days sanding and stripping and gluing and staining. It came out real purdy. We bought a glass top for it. We put it in the spare bedroom.

It needed a chair, of course, so we got an old one from her father’s basement and I spent days and days sanding and stripping and gluing and staining. It came out real purdy.

You would think this purdy little desk and chair would be perfect for the Mrs.’ new office, wouldn’t you?

But apparently it is too small.

In my office — as you may recall from an earlier blog – I’ve have both my grandfather’s roll top and a computer desk made from her grandfather’s cutting table. He was a tailor. I suggested she take her grandfather’s desk and I could get another desk for my computer. She said no. She liked the “continuity” of me using her grandfather’s cutting table for my writing.

A week ago she changed her mind. She now likes the continuity of her using her grandfather’s cutting table. Fine by me, said I.

So I went to Office Max and looked all the computer tables. All too expensive. All too modern for my rustic tastes.

So I went to a used office furniture store in downtown Akron. There, underneath a pile of metal desks from the seventies and eighties, was a wonderful old “teacher’s” desk. One of those big old, oak jobbies that cranky old teachers with wire-rimmed glasses and buns used to sit behind while you stood up front and recited your multiplication tables. I’ve always wanted one. Not a cranky old teacher with a bun – an old teacher’s desk. This one was beat up a bit, but, hey, for fifty bucks?

So I bought it. And I don’t intend to do any sanding and stripping and gluing and staining. It’s purdy enough.

I did need a filing cabinet though. The filing cabinets holding up the old cutting table went with the old cutting table. So I went back to Office Max and bought the cheapest metal filing cabinet I could to go alongside the old teacher’s desk. One-hundred and ten bucks.

The Mrs. now had her desk. But what’s a desk without a chair. Office Max. Eighty bucks.

The Mrs. Now had her desk and chair. But what’s a computer without a printer?

You’re thinking Office Max. Lots of bucks. But hold on. When we bought my new computer a couple years ago it came with a free printer. Since I already had a better printer than the free one, the free one went into the closet. Now the Mrs. could use it!

I plugged it in and downloaded the software. No work. The help box said to check the USB cable. That was surely the problem. I’ve had problems with USB cables in the past. So I unplugged it and re-plugged it and jiggled it around. Still, no work. So I decided to try a different USB cable – the one linking my printer with my computer. The only trouble was that the cable was taped to the power cord with duct tape. So I got my jackknife and started cutting. And I cut right through the power cord.

I did try my USB cable on the free printer, but that one didn’t work either. It seems the software that came with the free printer was not compatible with the new Vista system in the Mrs.’ new laptop.

So I hooked up the free printer to my computer (inasmuch as my old printer no longer had a power cord) and loaded the software. It worked just fine. So I had a printer. But not the Mrs.

Office Max. One-hundred and twenty bucks.

(There’s no reason getting just a printer when you can a nifty new wireless one with fax and scanner and copier.)

So now the Mrs. and I have our separate offices.

And I really love the oak teacher’s desk. It fits right in with my roll top and other cool old comfy stuff.

I’ve only had the desk for a week, but already it has revealed a bit of itself to me. For one thing, it is not a teacher’s desk after all. It’s a librarian’s desk. When I was dragging it into the house, a small brochure fell out. The brochure advertised a 1954 Cleveland Public Library event. Which led me to think the desk might have come from Cleveland. Then, under one of the drawers I found a 1973 pay stub from the Akron library.

How many librarians sat at this desk over the decades, I wonder? How many zillions of people were helped by those librarians? How many were hushed or otherwise intimidated? How many books passed across it? How many pencils jiggled in its drawer trays? How many bad sack lunches were stored in the double drawer on the left? How many hips were bruised on its sharp corners?

And then the library where it lived was torn down or remodeled. And the desk went in a warehouse somewhere. A musty purgatory that probably lasted for years and years. Then it was sold for next to nothing to the used office furniture store. And it was stuck in the back of another warehouse and buried under newer desks.

Then along came an impoverished writer of books . . .

F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that, “There are no second acts in American lives.”

Oh, yeah? Tell it to my desk, Scotty.