I have what some people might call an “office supply fetish.” I love pens, mechanical pencils, notebooks, blotters, paperweights. Oh crap, I left my new paper weight at home today! This awesome on I got for Christmas, totally left it on the stereo.

ANYWAY. Yeah, so I love pens. Fountain pens are awesome! Have you ever used a fountain pen? It makes you feel like you’re a Dickens character. Totally kicks arse. But this pen here, I don’t think I’d get so much enjoyment out of writing with it. I’d more likely get back ache, I think.

Hey, I heard you missed us … we’re back! I brought my pen-cil! Gimme something to write on!

Hello girls! Here we have some nice folks using crayons that are ill-suited for writing or coloring. They’re just too big! If you have to use both hands to manipulate the writing instrument, you don’t have a hand free to hold the paper or coloring book in place. That means the paper or the book is gonna go sliding all over the place. A recipe for frustration. Coloring is supposed to be fun!

I got my pen-cil … gimme something to write on! This is a great looking pencil, and I bet it writes like a dream. But if you were to absent-mindedly chew on the eraser, you might get a stomach ache -that’s a lot of eraser, after all! And if you were to make the mistake of tucking this behind your ear, you might end up with some real cartilage pain.

Listen, people, childhood is short enough as it is – you designers don’t need to go shortening it further by building enormous colored pencils that can serve no purpose other than to invest a child with a sense of inadequacy. To the young man or woman approaching these statuesque pencils, they are little more than a reminder that the world is bigger than they are – and come on, who makes paper large enough to correspond with these? Poorly conceived from the outset!

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Hell yes, you are – this lady is about to write something of world-shaking importance. Why otherwise would she be using a pen of such unwieldy dimensions? One trembles at the thought of what her future manifesto might contain … a decisive plan for a new world order? A realistic, economically viable solution to the health care crisis? An alternate ending for Great Expectations?

I guess, maybe, she’s just signing her credit card slip. That could be. But with that pen? Overkill.

Holy Christ, dude, don’t lick that! IT’S A HUMONGOUS PENCIL! Please, I’m begging you, do not put that in your mouth! Pencil lead is extremely toxic, not to mention that particular pencil that you are now currently holding in your hand is HUGE! Set down the pencil and walk away, homes!