Semblance of a Whole

Useless

Anyone want a mouse pad? I've never really seen the point of 'em, especially with today's optical mice. Even if you like to use them, exactly how many mouse pads does a person need? Judging by their popularity as promotional giveaways, we should all be going through one a month at least. I just got back from two fabulous weeks of vacation at dance camp, which meant spending the better part of a day going through the resulting backlog of voice, e- and snail mail. The Library Information Technology Association apparently thought that sending me a mousepad would tempt me to attend their next conference. If they wanted to inspire me with a tech-related gift, what about something actually useful? For instance, how about a USB keychain drive? They could even customize it with their logo or save a file on it for me to view with information about the conference.

So the question remains: What do I do with the mouse pad? I hate to just throw it in the trash. Is there a world repository for surplus mouse pads (possibly located next to the one for unsolicited AOL disks)? A brief poll of my colleagues at work yielded the following suggestions:

• opener for stubborn jar lids
• sew together to make a wet suit
• cut up to make insoles for shoes
• wedge under uneven table or chair legs or glue on pieces to prevent legs from scratching floors
• terraforming

Any other practical or impractical ideas?