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20120123

little moment of compulsion #2

I have a favorite type of pencil.  It's the Pentel Twist-Erase III with 0.9mm lead, preferably in black.  I don't just like them, I hoard them.  I have eight of them in a box hidden in the house, plus the one I use regularly.  If I lose the one in current use, I'll take out a spare.  If I find the one I've lost, I'll put the spare back.  It's a good system.

N uses these pencils too, except he uses the 0.7mm ones (which I used to use--that's how we got them in the first place).  At one point, he couldn't find any of his and wanted to break into my store.  It's embarrassing in retrospect, but I had an emotional reaction and refused to let him have any.  Even when I eventually conceded, I gave him the one dark blue one that I had.

I've hoarded them since high school.  When we were in California, I found two packs of the 0.9mm version (totaling 4 pencils) unopened in my dresser.  N claimed them as his, and I started fretting about how we were going to tell his pencils apart from my pencils, since each pack had one black and one blue.

In addition to the pencils themselves, I have spare erasers and lead for them that will last until doomsday.  Come the apocalypse, or Pentel's bankruptcy, or the illegalization of mechanical pencils, I'll be prepared.

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