Pink Erasers Will Outlast us Like Pet Parrots

Few things burn me up like the yearly “Back-to-School” plea for classroom supplies-- especially those my kids never use.  Kleenex, for instance—everyone knows tissues are for the teachers.  Kids don’t use tissues—they use the palm of their hand to wipe their noses up, carrying the snot up into their hair.

Or they just let the mucus hang like little “nose-cicles.”

This year, as I read through my daughter’s school supply list, I found the one thing I objected to most:  a pink eraser.  Stop the shopping cart.  Folders and markers, I get, but a PINK ERASER? 

“I’m not buying you a pink eraser.”

“Why?”

“Because I know we still have yours from last year.  The only reason anyone needs a new one is if they lost the one they got the year before.” 

"MOM!"

“In fact,” I went on, “I’m pretty sure I can find the pink eraser I had when I was a kid and it’s no smaller than it was in 1972.” 

After not that much hunting, it materialized in our junk drawer, with my full name and that of my 2^nd grade teacher’s written on the bottom with ball-point ink.  Evidently, my mother didn't see a reason to throw it out either.  I'm thinking of hosting a “World’s Oldest Pink Eraser” contest because I think I can win with the one in my Dad’s old desk from 1945.

Just a thought.

“Here it is!!” I scream triumphantly, to my daughter’s chagrin, “Take that to school with you--it’s perfectly good!”

“I’ll just use the eraser at the end of the pencils,” she said, disgusted.

“And THAT is why the big pink ones never wear out!” I trumpeted.

It was my “Ah-HA” moment.  Behold it.

A pink eraser will outlast us all.  Fossilized erasers will puzzle future archaeologists, who will scratch their heads and wonder why the odd-shaped vulcanized rubber, if a tool as they supposed, showed no sign of wear.  "Is it a body part?" they'll theorize, "or maybe animal droppings?"

In the store recently and saw a 5-pack of pink erasers.  You can imagine the rant I had upon this sighting.  I see this as a blatent effort on the part of the manufacturer to unload inventory on frenzied, oblivious parents.

But they were an outstanding deal.