Looking For One Good Pencil

Twice a month, my husband sits down with bills and the checkbook, a calculator and a pen, to keep our finances on track. And twice a month I hear nothing but mutterings about how he's just looking for one good pencil, who is taking his pencil, where are all the pencils, why can he never find a pencil.....

The mutterings are endless, but focus on one thing: he wants a good pencil.

I have a mini stockpile of pencils and pens on the school supply shelf, but since I also have 5 other pencil/pen cups around the house, he looks in the other cups first. Just in case his pencil is there. It isn't a pencil that has his name on it, it's just one that has been sharpened and used and proven it's worth.

We have all had it happen to us. A pencil, sharpened to perfection, the point begging to be pressed against a clean sheet of paper, and with the first hint of a letter formed, the lead snaps off and the pencil is broken. My husband hates that. So when he has found a pencil that holds its lead, he understandably wants to keep it.

I've heard that the lead is very fragile, and if you are in the worst aisle in the world (school supply days before school starts) you might just throw the boxes of pencils into your cart and get out of there fast and that throw could be breaking the lead internally, so every time those pencils are sharpened and look good to use, they are actually just a useless wood tube holding broken lead together.

I've heard that. I'm not saying I've done it. Just that it's something I've heard could possibly happen.

Or maybe all I'm looking for is a kick ass pencil sharpener.....stop using tiny plastic school bag shavers or a sharp knife to whittle the lead out.....a real sharpener might make the chore of sharpening a pencil not so time consuming and hideous.

I could also start tagging my husband's pencil, so we all know that belongs to Dad and the bills. If he drops it on the floor and doesn't pick it up and Olive Badger takes it out and chews it to bits, well, that's a different story then. She can't read the tag that says "Dad's Pencil."

Or I could ignore the twice monthly mutterings, content to know that is all part of the process of bill paying!