Open Wide!

This is not on the Purge List.

This is my pencil sharpener. Domhan gave it to me years ago, and it has been a constant desk companion ever since.

I do not use pencils very often. In fact, almost never. I use fine point purple felt-tipped pens that I purchase by the dozen. However, there are 2 seasons during the year when I need a sharp pencil. They are called "The End of the Semester."

The only way you can fill out the final grade rosters is with a #2 pencil. It has always been this way, except for the last 2 or 3 years I was at the Big Giant University, and they snazzed everything up and had us turn in our grades online. The High School Pretending to Be a College, where I work now, barely has bathrooms, so we're lucky to have a grading system at all.

For me, the bubble forms are more satisfying than the online process. I like to take my pencil, sharpened to the point of a straight-pin, and color in the little vacant grade-bubbles. I relish punishing the students for their astonishing displays of meatheadedness during the semester. The ramping up to this is the best part. This is the moment when I ram my dull pencil into the gorilla's mouth and listen to the delicious grind of the motor as the wood is chewed away from the lead. I can pretend I'm stabbing that student who asked me what a "font" was. Or I'm rapidly swiss-cheesing the forearms of the guy who said "Old people are too patriotic. Because they're just old and dumb."

Ah, the delicious insight and wisdom that pours out of them. Just like the curly pencil shavings from poor Mr. Gorilla's neck.