RIP pencil.
~2004 – 11-4-2015
I kept losing pencils when I was in school, but then I got a twist-erase mechanical pencil in middle school (which are pretty cool, because they have huge erasers, since I tended to go through normal erasers on pencils too quickly), which lasted pretty long. Until, I think I lost it when I was in high school by leaving it at a desk. When I realized I'd left it, I came back within a few minutes, but someone already snatched it. The replacement one I bought, though, lasted a very, very long time.
It was with me through the rest of high school, and through college. It was with me when drawing and writing at home. It was one of the items with me when my dad's house burned, and, when I lost it in a college class soon after, someone returned it to me when I drew a wanted poster for it (which ended up being actual size despite having drawn it from memory).
(pic found online) The Twist-Erase name/logo was worn off long ago. The metal end ('sharpened' part of a pencil, funnel-like) was whitish and no longer shiny, from all the fine scratches on it. The little metal piece on the very end, I once dropped the pencil on something hard and caused a little place there, which I sanded back smooth, but it left a little, barely noticeable, missing place. The metal clip was only a bit shiny in the middle, where the clip was mostly protected, and the clip would sometimes pop off if something pulled it and I'd have to snap it back in place. The black grip on the pencil had a few vertical lines on it around the bottom, probably little cracks from it getting old and slightly brittle.
There's a church study group type thing I'd been going to for the past few Wednesday nights, and last Wednesday (or, Wednesday before last?), after leaving the church and stopping at a grocery store named Marsh, I realized my pencil wasn't in my pocket when I thought about writing something down while in the store. I made a mental note to myself to check in the parking lot by the car door before leaving, but then forgot. I didn't see it next time I went to Marsh, and no one at church has found it. So, it seems like my run with this pencil has ended. It'd be weird, though, using a new pencil after all the stuff I've done with that one. Seems wrong to replace it, and to do art stuff with some other pencil.
Have you ever had a pencil you've used so much, it's become special?
