I spend a lot of time alone, not in isolation, but alone. Thoughts and memories come and go. I never know what is going to trigger one. Some of them bring happiness and some bring sadness. I do however, give them all equal billing. Doing a little wood project the other day I had one of these realizations and need to get honest. I have a confession to make. I have always had a small, well, that’s a really large “small,” amount of hate for the HB pencil. I know it is irrational, but it is true. When I have to use one they manage to irritate me on every level of my being. I have had a lifelong battle with this tool for writing and have come to an understanding of why they bother me so much. First of all, they are too damn thin. I mean really, would it have hurt to put a little meat on that yellow wooden stick. Because of their minimalistic approach to design they are impossible to grip, and the yellow paint makes them slippery, especially in the hands of a nervous child. And the eraser attached to the end, don’t even get me started on its uselessness.

When I try to write with one of those instruments of torture it never goes well. I guess I have a hard grip because I constantly break the point. I mean constantly. It never fails and it occurs soon after the pencil is in my hand. I have tried everything. I loosen my grip. I pay attention to my grip. I try to be gentle. I speak to it with soft loving words, and yet, nothing ever works. The only way I can refrain from breaking the point, and sometimes the pencil itself, is to not use it, and that is, well, self-defeating. Today I have more and better options, but the horror still lingers.

Using them as a kid in school was torture; like I said, the point always breaks. And then, when it breaks, it has to be sharpened. Envision me as a small child at my desk, trying to do my work while lurking in my head was the inevitable break, and then, it would happen. I would sit at my desk petrified, another point was broken. I had to finish my work but I had already been to the sharpener three times. All these trips within the last ten minutes. Why were the sharpeners always in the front of the room, and why were they so loud? The sharpeners always seemed to be ancient and broken. They were permanently attached, screwed into the wood of the chalkboard. Yes, I must confess, there were chalkboards in school when I was a kid. Usually there was a trashcan under the sharpener because they would leak wood and graphite particles. I would always get the mixture on my fingers and then transfer it to my paper as a smudge. I would try to clean it but would only make it worse. I watched with shame as the smudge would grow before my watchful eyes.

And think about it, these pencils never did sharpen well. I hated it when it was sharpened and one side of the point had a layer of wood to the tip. Or, when the tip would not come to a point but had a ridge dividing it. And of course, when I would get a beautiful tip it would be broken below the wooden layer and would fall off when I tried to write. I would need to start the grinding process all over, and of course the noise and the looks from the teacher would follow. Sometimes I would end up with a pencil so short I could not hold it.

I am certain those erasers were manufactured by sadistic people, with a special nasty mean streak for kids. The first problem was they would almost always break when you tired to use them. Ever try to pick up that small, broken piece of eraser and correct your work? It was next to impossible and with all my broken pencil points I had a lot of mistakes to correct. I remember how it would work. I would go to correct my error expecting a clean fresh surface to appear. But, it was never like that was it? I remember the smear and smudge spots that were worse that the mistakes. I would try so hard to clean up the mess that I often wound up with a hole in the paper.

A simple mistake may have gone unnoticed. I mean the teacher always had a lot of work to grade, right? But of course the smudge was a flag and the hole was a silent shout out of cacophonic glory. It was an attention grabbing item and I was doomed. I would just sink lower in my seat and hope to disappear, but it never worked. I would look around the room and notice the smiling or at least, intent faces of the other students at work. They never went to the sharpener. They never seem to erase and when they did, Mr. Clean blessed them. I began to wonder if there was a HB pencil inoculation prior to entering school that I had not received. What did they know that I did not?

I wish I could say I outgrew this syndrome, but I never did. Advances in technology have helped somewhat. For instance, the mechanical pencil reduces the pain, but only to the degree that I don’t have to go the the sharpener any more as it is built into the device. However, I do find myself clicking through that little shaft of lead at a rapid pace. And the erasers, well they don’t break as easily now because they simply fall out of their holder instead. They do still smudge and smear with the best of the HB pencils though.

When I find I have to use an old fashion HB pencil I still face the same issues. Well, that’s not entirely true as the teacher is not shooting me looks while I try to get a point at the sharpener. Funny though, while I have not done a legitimate study, I believe the HB pencil of today is inferior to the ones of yesteryear. (Wonder if I can get a government grant to research that?) Of course maybe they are not. Maybe they seem to break so much easier because I am just stronger.