The Story Behind School Supplies

Summer is nearly over and that means one thing—kiddies around the world are groaning in disgust at the fact of going back to school while parents secretly rejoice.  Thanks to the towering aisles of school supplies found at any and all local stores, even those without children cannot go unawares that school is soon to be back in session.  Notebooks, pens, pencils, markers, crayons, folders, glue, and all other necessary supplies are being scooped up at rapid rates, and parents must hurry if they want to successfully track down all things on their children’s mandatory supply list.  It’s the unavoidable annual treasure hunt all parents have to endure—sort of a parental wright of passage set on repeat if you will.

Let’s start with pencils.  This year I’ve discovered that teachers are requiring students to buy forty pencils in which each must be readily sharpened and initialed.  After doing the math, that works out to roughly fourteen more pencils than there are school weeks in the school year if you average one hundred eighty days per school year.  That might seem insane, but let’s take a moment to really analyze this.  The pencil is the most abused supply in the school.  Students’ myriad of emotions whether it be stress, frustration, passion, or dedication all falls on the shoulder of the poor pencil.  Everyone can recall that kid in class that snapped his pencil every time he got stuck on a particularly tough math problem which ended up being once every day, perhaps every other day if the teacher was particularly lucky.  Or how about that kid that used his pencil as his very own chew stick?  While other kids watched on in horror at Brady’s feral sharp canines praying they would never find themselves forced to borrow a pencil from him, he would mow down his pencil in under a record two days’ time.  Who knew what diseases one could contract from Brady the Beaver Kid’s saliva lacquered pencils?  Then there were those that somehow managed to lose all of their pencils shortly after the start of the year—of course, by no fault of their own they would swear to their teacher—and ended up using a pencil so small it could not even be seen in the grip of their small hands.  Let it be known by the campaign of these students that a five centimeter pencil still has its worth.  Some teachers would go as far as making class rules pertaining to the smallest length of pencils allowed in the classroom; yet, students in small rebel groups would bravely continue their fight of resistance.  Finally, we arrive at the hoarder.  Yep, that sneaky little git who always managed to swipe up your pencil as soon as you turned your back.  He would hoard his stolen contraband in his mess of a desk with a gleaming, nasty smile, and when you returned to find your Lisa Frank Unicorn pencil swiped from beneath your very nose you knew it was him, but had no proof to go on.  With all of this in mind, I’m surprised teachers don’t ask for students to bring another ten pencils just for good measure.

Let’s move onto that sticky white mess found in both bottle and stick form—glue!  Whether it be the glue user or the glue itself, glue always seemed to be problematic for a multitude of reasons.  The glue stick which was supposed to be the quicker, cleaner manner in which to dole out adhesiveness always managed to double cross you.  You would go to streak a layer across the back of your beautifully rendered rainbow picture—because let’s face it, rainbows are the Mona Lisa in the under-nine-years-old drawing world—and the damn glue stick would, out of the blue I might add, fall off, roll across your desk, and land in a pile of glitter, hair strands, paper scraps, pencil shavings, and whatever else found on the ungodly dirty classroom floor leaving no chance for revival.  You would then default to your bottle glue only to find it was just as unaccommodating thanks to the fact that the cap was always clogged by dry glue.  You would gather pencil, scissors, and even wire pulled from your notebook binding all in the effort to unplug the hole only to have the teacher announce it was time to clean up when you finally removed the ball of plastic-like dry glue after a grueling half-hour effort.  Even if you got lucky and managed to avoid these predicaments, you still had to worry about those who were utterly inept at managing the necessary skills required of handling glue.  There was always those few kids that used glue in ocean-like quantities that managed to leak glue all over their projects, their desks, themselves, and of course the innocent by-stander with the simple misfortune of sitting next to them.  Even worse was that kid that would choose to start snack time early with a few tasty drops of Elmer’s finest.  You knew without a doubt in your mind to keep your distance from that kid and answer in simple yes and no responses if he or she ever approached you and quickly high-tail it out of there immediately afterward.  Yes, glue-eating was definitely a deal-breaker when it came to choosing a reading buddy.  In short, glue and its incapable users were never to be trusted.

Lastly, let’s visit the magical and powerful world of crayons.  As crazy as it seems, crayons were always a status symbol when I grew up, and I’m fairly certain they still are if my substituting observations are anything to go on.  You had the choice of Crayola or Rose Art, and let’s face it, you were immediately out of the race if you were found toting Rose Art.  Rose Art Crayons were the losers of the coloring world and so were you if you found yourself coloring with these plastic, easily breakable Crayola Crayon wannabes.  That’s right; if you were anybody of importance in the dicey, complicated social infrastructure of the elementary classroom you were packing Crayola.  Sorry, no arguments.  However, the simple ownership of Crayola Crayons was not the end of it, not by a long shot.  Owning the basic eight set also made you an easy target.  To be safe, you had to have in your supply arsenal, at the very least, the standard twenty-four pack.  Yet, the coolest of the cool at the top of the cool kid kingdom even blew the twenty-four pack out of the water.  That’s right she would swagger in embracing for all the class to see…wait for it…the 120 pack!!!  Bam!  All kids groveled at her feet in the hopes that Her Majesty would bestow upon them the kindness of sharing her crayons with their far less-fortunate selves.  Still, there remained those opportunistic power-hungry few that wished to de-thrown Her Highness with a box of glitter or glow in the dark crayons, but they only managed to reign for a few weeks until the flashy novelty wore off and the queen recovered her rightful chair once more.  Let’s face it, to this day, the 120 pack and its mac n’ cheese orange remains the coolest.