(June 27, 2023)
never licked the lead
on a pencil - 'specially
one which has been used
does the tongue test for sharpness
does 'graphite' please the palate *
*(I remain mystified almost a near three-quarters of a century over the curious custom of licking the tip of a "lead" pencil. Why? I know, I know: I've been accused - and so rightly so - such as chewing the ends of my shirt collars, especially those such shirts which come with those flappy things at the end where the buttons usually start, or at least as I have so determined (and also been told). When my mother inquired of my alleged pediatricist she was informed: "I don't know: maybe the kid just needs some more fiber. " Does that explain the lack of chewed teeshirt rings? Or even the writing paper - lined or unlined though I seemed to recall favoring college-ruled- and that was all before I found the peraps highest ever employment for straws - the spitwad-shooting device. Even to this day I annoy servers of sundry food and drinks who when told: "no straw, please. I'm a danger to mankind with a straw, capped or naked - in my hand. I suggested to the Major Powers we all hold START-level or at least SALT-level talks leading to a cessation of the manufactory or distribution of such provocative devices. Even the newfound method of making straws unusable for drawing liquid from glass-to-mouth because tje straw dissolves during its application: now ain't that a wonder? A high technology answer to the age-still-young dilemma of curtailing dangerous devices decoyed as a feeble and futile attempt to lessen the load on Mother Earth's overstressed oceans rapidly filling up with empty Tide boxes, Refrigerators and the occasional Boeing jetliner making it soon possible to walk across the entire Central Pacific from Johnston Island to Saipan's easternmost confines. These straws will sink us all in 12 years, to quote my favorite communist adherent to barrista and bartender advancement to US. congresscritter representing the mad hatters in Minnesota and Michigan who five (or is it seven?) times daily must go out and buy a super giant gulpathon slurpee with the attendant plastic barrel called a soda straw which eventually will fall off a hired garbage barge making its robot-directed way from the shores of New Jersey (what? they've run out of Mob guys to whack and dump at sea? Shocking!) and by time and tide make its way to the vast and uncharted floating island of trash which soon will become a new nation - with appropriate minority representation in Congress. And all because someone kept thinking "why am I still licking this pencil lead? Will the lines I make be more easily read?)
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