One Red Paperclip... and a Real Sad Story

  So after reading the story of the man who traded a red paperclip, and eventually ended up owning a house, I was pumped about my little silver paperclip in hopes that my story would be just as breathtaking as his.  It all started in my organizational communication class where I had my first successful transaction after I traded the silver paperclip for a black hair band from the young lady sitting next to me.  After the fairly easy transaction, I was sure that I was on to something good.  I then traded the hair band for a wooden pencil in my very next class from a girl who needed a hair band, I got bonus points because she thought it was thoughtful of me to carry women's hair bands for damsels in distress.  I then got to my room, and asked my roommate if he had anything he was willing to trade for a wooden pencil.  After a little bit of bartering, it was the first time anyone in this story actually questioned why I was doing this, he decided to help me out by giving me a mechanical pencil.  A slight technological upgrade, but nonetheless my trading was still moving forward to bigger better things.  My final good trade came when I traded an Air Force officer that pencil for an Air Force ROTC pen.  Unfortunately, this is where my story flat lines because I could not manage to trade that blue pen for anything other than more pens that were the same quality or worse.