My office, which I share with Stephanie Austin, provides a refuge from all manner of undesirables (students :), coldness, and other things). However, we do have a resident office menace. It terrorizes all items smaller than one inch across, randomly yawning its metal jaws to swallow the items. The menace is attached to the wall, so only things near it are at risk. Unfortunately, I tend to stack papers, books, and other small items on top of our menace, so a great many small things daily live in fear of being captured.

A few weeks ago, the menace claimed its first victim, a small unassuming library book. Sir Anthony, my brother, rescued the book from certain destruction with an ingenious device made of part of the blinds, a paper clip, and some tape. The carnage was averted.

But the peace was not to be. This afternoon, while I was opening the window, my ID card was sucked into the gaping maw of the beast. Although Sir Anthony was not around, Stephanie and I quickly adopted his technique, once again deconstructing the blinds in order to save my precious card. However, the card was too far into the beast for this tactic to work; it was clear that we needed a new plan. In a great, valiant effort, we lifted up the whole Menace and smote it with the blinds-rapier, Stephanie thus successfully extracting the card from the jaws of death. When it came out, it was covered in the monster’s filth, but it was alive.

Truly, our office menace is a dangerous foe. But, alas, it is to be ever with us: it is our air conditioner.

P.S. In this small essay, I have used every type of phrase, clause, and sentence that my students will need to know for their unit test on Monday.