I finally had to admit that the stapler kicked my butt. I spent thirty minutes trying to fix our Stanley Bostitch heavy duty stapler. I thought something had just been thrown out of whack because someone put the wrong staples in the thing. The stapler retails for something between $37 and $60. It's not a huge amount of money but we're short on funds right now, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try. I can usually fix things if they're just jammed or bent. I took the whole thing apart and I have to admit I was darned pleased with myself when I was able to do it. Most of the time I can find some kind of helpful hints or at least a diagram online for fixing things, but this time the search drew a blank. After a lot of trial and error with a spring and that thin, flat thingy that pushes the staple down out of the stapler, I thought I had it working again. I put it all back together and it worked for exactly one staple. I know what the problem is. The thingy isn't coming back up after it pushes the staple out. There's a groove in the handle where either the spring or the thingy goes (or a piece that's missing). Maybe the spring is supposed to pull the thingy back up? It'll have to wait until tomorrow. It may have kicked my butt tonight, but I'll have another go at fixing it tomorrow. I'm open to suggestions from any of you who are mechanically inclined.