I must have been about 7 or 8 years old when I saw my first mechanical pencil. My dad owned it, and somehow I got my hands on it. I clicked the lead out and admired the sleek filament of lead, so smooth to the touch, so mysterious in it’s ability to stretch itself out of its casing. I’d never seen anything like it. But then the lead snapped. That’s the moment I remember most clearly. That and hiding the ruined pencil under my pillow after trying and trying to fix the snapped lead without success.

That night, as he tucked us kids in and said goodnight, Dad noticed that I was sniffling a little into my sheets. After a stiff interrogation (as I remember it, he asked, “what’s wrong?”) I spilled the whole story… how I had found his pencil, how I had broken it, how I’d tried to fix it but just couldn’t. “Where is it now?” he asked.

Oh, the shame! Not only had I broken his pencil, but I’d hidden it in the vain hope that he’d never notice the loss (though how anyone could overlook the loss of such a treasure I couldn’t fathom). Sobbing, I pulled the pencil out from under my pillow, as well as the teensy piece of lead that need reattaching.

At this point Dad realized that I’d broken the lead, not the pencil. He got me out of bed to show me the little plastic container of replacement leads, popped off the eraser to show me where to load the new leads, and then handed the pencil to me so that I could prove to myself that it would, indeed, act in its original, wondrous way.