1. Off-season holiday candy, mostly wrappers.
2. Textbook left in classroom by a student who either dropped, transferred, or was raptured.
3. “Swear Jar,” except for forgetting to add the Oxford Comma.
4. Homemade fortune cookie. Fortunes count as publication credit on tenure review.
5. Stapler attached to a chain because Beth thinks it’s the goddamn office supply open season around here.
6. Irremovable mouse pad with picture of a stranger’s children on it. Children may or may not be ghosts, forever trapped in foam limbo waiting for a mouse that will never return.
7. Stack of literary journals as intellectual prop, lunchtime reading, cause of existential dread.
8. Single-frame comic mocking PowerPoints in a futile attempt to dissuade their use by students, displayed above the desk at which you design your daily PowerPoint.
9. Tarot cards to determine departmental travel allotment chances for this year.
10. Voodoo doll of department head after he rejects your travel allotment.
11. “World’s Best Prof” mug, full of pens.
12. “World’s Worst Prof” mug, full of whiskey.
13. Cirque Du Soleil postcard to remind yourself that your coworkers at least wear shoes most of the time, so there’s that.
14. Succulent deemed unkillable (it will die).
15. Miniature CVs to hand to well-connected students—adjunct faculty only.
16. Taped-off personal area of shared workspace—adjunct faculty only.
17. Colleague’s dirty mug, passive-aggressively chipped by a stapler chained to your shared workspace—adjunct faculty only.
18. Box of Kleenexes.
19. Box of Kleenexes, empty—adjunct faculty only.