Triangular Pencils and Other Marvels of the Universe

I can't tell you the time we've wasted on pencils in this house. Losing them; looking for them; sharpening them once, twice and again because the hand-held sharpeners just don’t work; losing them; looking some more; and then tracking down an eraser because you discovered yours is missing one after scratching the paper to shreds with the metal ring. And don't get me started on the shriveled-up, dried-out erasers that leave un-erasable red marks on the paper. Those hateful things. When you choose one of those pencils, you think you’re cool because you see the eraser is intact; then you try to erase with it and find it makes a big old mess. So the search for a pencil begins again.

Then there are the pencil grips for Maddie and Maya who are still struggling to keep those fingers in all the right places. You just don't know all the processes that have to take place to do a math sheet when you're thinking through simple tasks we grownups take for granted: like getting the pencil situated in your hand just right, then remembering how to actually make a five ("five starts in the starting corner, then it starts to rain and 5 turns around to get an umbrella”). By the time you've got it all set straight, you're likely to have forgotten the answer to your problem. And woe to the one who finds they need to actually erase.

We also kept losing our pencil grips. Those darned little things grow legs when no one's looking and are hiding out with all the missing socks, snickering at our ill-fated efforts to track them down and keep them put. I just know it.

Well, between the crappy hand-held pencil sharpeners that never work when you can find them, the slippery pencil grips, and the dried erasers, I had had enough. So off I went to our new Office Max for some supplies.

Now, if you know me, you know one of my favorite places is the office supply store. Maybe it’s the potential of unblemished notebooks, the possibility of perfect organization promised by new filing cabinets and label makers, or the lure of faster printers and ergonomic leather desk chairs. I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. But it is certain that new and revolutionary marvels await you at the office supply store.

Business must be slow because the very knowledgeable salesman seemed to actually enjoy our 15 minute discussion on pencils, pencil lead, refillable Clic erasers, pencil grips, and the difference between a $6 electric pencil sharpener and a $40 one. He seemed just as excited as I about the new triangular pencil by Pentech, which will solve all the problems of the universe—OK, maybe not ALL of them. But it has helped to simplify our days. It’s softly rounded triangle shape places the pencil correctly in the girls' little fingers so there’s one less particular for them to worry over. And, no more lost pencil grips!

Now I just need to fashion some sort of tracking device for locating wayward pencils.