My Paper Mate Pencil

The paper mate pencil is a key component of my childhood. It may seem like a rather random and old fashioned artifact, but in fact, it could take some of the responsibility for who I am today. 

In my young age, my father was a lawyer at a rather pompous law firm in downtown Lansing. Although it had its perks, like a fully stocked fridge of Mountain Dew, it also had some serious drawbacks. That is, my father was forced to work. Like, a lot. So, sitting at home in the formal living room, he’d talk into his little tape recorder, which his secretary would later type up for him. But, he always had these pencils just laying around. With their custard like shell, pink tip, and twisty bottom, they were magical to me and my brothers. Pencils you don’t have to sharpen? It was amazing. A real feat of physics to six year old. 

Dad worked a lot from home, so the pencils were scattered everywhere. Pencils became kind of fixation, one that hooked my older brother. David found mechanical pencils to be fascinating. He’d spend hours in Staples before school started picking out the perfect mechanical pencils to write with. You know those pencils that are outrageously expensive, kept like diamonds in glass cases at high class stores? David was drawn to those like a fat kid to a tub of butter. He wanted them. Once, we went to the University of Kansas and there was an entire aisle, solely of pencils. When I got bored of looking at tshirts with birds on them, I tugged my Dad’s arm and said “let’s bounce.” But we couldn’t. Nope, David was in hog heaven with those pencils. 

When we got into middle school and high school, our lovely peers rarely used anything but mechanical pencils. But, they usually got the fancy ones. You know, the ones with the different colors, and you can refill their lead, and all the cool kids were using them. So for a while, Jake and I used the multicolored ones, and Dave used his fancy ones.

Slowly, though, we all switched over to the yellow and brown Paper Mate Sharpwriter #2 pencils. Perhaps we didn’t all want to, necessarily, but we’re all a little absent minded, so our sparkly new pencils would get lost, and Dad, always faithful to those Paper Mates, would have boxes of them just laying around. So, we’d use them and before I knew it, when school shopping came around, all three of us kids were buying boxes of the Paper Mates. We just couldn’t help ourselves.

This tradition lasted through high school and now into college. I never really noticed what a trait it wasin me though, until my first year of college. A girl down the hall from me, halfway through the year, asked me if she could borrow one of those “business looking pencils” for her exam the next day. She traded me two tubes of Dior Lipgloss for them. For those of you who don’t speak Dior, it was a pretty awesome trade in my favor.

It wasn’t until today, however, that I learned what a trait it was in our family. As I sat next to my older brother’s friend in class, he asked if he could borrow a number 2 pencil for our scantron quiz. Of course, I replied, and leaned into my bag to pull out a handful of Paper Mates. He burst out laughing, “You have those too? David had those laying everywhere! What’s with your family?”

What’s with my family? We’re loyal, I suppose. When we find a product we like, we stick with it. And those Paper Mates, well, I have at least four boxes in my desk drawer right now. I write my papers with them, I fill in notes with them, I take tests with them, and when they’re on sale, I stock up on them. Is it weird? I suppose. But hey, when you find something as glorious as the Paper Mate Pencil, devotion is key.