People all have addictions, vices, obsessions. Alcohol, pills, video games, internet poker, stamp collecting, star trek, car racing...obviously, the list is endless. If you know me, you know I have a coffee cup surgically attached to my right hand. However, today I realized I've never talked about my other obsession in life. I'm talking about mechanical pencils. (This is what happens when you are old and single). Yesterday afternoon I drove to Office Max and I kid you not, I spent about 40 minutes scrutinizing mechanical pencils and lead before I realized how OCD I am about having the perfect writing implement. 
Today I found one buried in my truck while I was looking for my fingernail clippers. The following was me, gradually becoming more and more excited the longer I looked at it..."hhmm...hey this is a 5.0 lead! sweet! Hey, it has the clicker on the side so you can push lead out without having to change hand position while taking notes! Hey it has a white eraser that won't leave marks and...oh my...oh my it's a twist out eraser, so it'll never get worn down to the point where you can't pull it out to replace it! And....and it has grippy things on the side! THIS IS A PERFECT PENCIL!"
Then I realized I had been driving for at least 30 seconds using my magic extrasensory perception because I was so focused on this stupid pencil that I had stopped looking out my windshield at the road in front of me. God must have invisible bowling bumpers for people like me so we don't crash into the side of a hill when we don't see the curve ahead of us. Otherwise the police and fire departments would arrive at the scene of my one car piled up and they'd find me with my perfect pencil clutched in my cold stiff hand and there would be a look of awe and amazement fixed on my face, like the expression of mindless wonder that Gollum wore at the end of the Lord of the Rings when he fell into the flaming pit with the Precious in his hand.
If that does ever happen, the dang undertaker better leave my pencil in my hand and let me be buried with it. Otherwis, so help me, I'll come back and steal all of the pens from his desk and stick them in all the other dead people's hands at night. Ha, that would creep him out pretty decently when he came in to work on their bodies in the morning. My guess is that he'd dig me back up and put the pencil back in my hand.
Now back to what I was talking about before I interupted myself with morbid imaginary death stories. I decided long ago that the typical first date routine of dinner and a movie was about as exciting and interesting as cold oatmeal. Last time I found myself in that situation, I wanted to stab my eyes out with a fork or call in a bomb threat on my cell phone from the bathroom. It's the whole lack of creativity thing that induces a gag reflex on my part. But it came to me while writing this that if some guy was to give me a coffee mug filled with coffee beans and pencils, I'd pretty much marry him on the spot. Sigh...does such a man exist? Only in fairy tales, I'm sure.
Then I realized I had been driving for at least 30 seconds using my magic extrasensory perception because I was so focused on this stupid pencil that I had stopped looking out my windshield at the road in front of me. God must have invisible bowling bumpers for people like me so we don't crash into the side of a hill when we don't see the curve ahead of us. Otherwise the police and fire departments would arrive at the scene of my one car piled up and they'd find me with my perfect pencil clutched in my cold stiff hand and there would be a look of awe and amazement fixed on my face, like the expression of mindless wonder that Gollum wore at the end of the Lord of the Rings when he fell into the flaming pit with the Precious in his hand.
If that does ever happen, the dang undertaker better leave my pencil in my hand and let me be buried with it. Otherwis, so help me, I'll come back and steal all of the pens from his desk and stick them in all the other dead people's hands at night. Ha, that would creep him out pretty decently when he came in to work on their bodies in the morning. My guess is that he'd dig me back up and put the pencil back in my hand.
Now back to what I was talking about before I interupted myself with morbid imaginary death stories. I decided long ago that the typical first date routine of dinner and a movie was about as exciting and interesting as cold oatmeal. Last time I found myself in that situation, I wanted to stab my eyes out with a fork or call in a bomb threat on my cell phone from the bathroom. It's the whole lack of creativity thing that induces a gag reflex on my part. But it came to me while writing this that if some guy was to give me a coffee mug filled with coffee beans and pencils, I'd pretty much marry him on the spot. Sigh...does such a man exist? Only in fairy tales, I'm sure.
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