My New Electric Pencil Sharpener
Getting to the Point
I once attended a lecture by novelist John Irving. He discussed the mechanics of writing The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, and his other masterpieces of fiction. He also talked about how he writes. The John Irving Technique is to write the end of a novel first, then make your way back to the beginning. He also prefers to write by hand.
This immediately inspired me to invest in a box of №2 pencils.
Through the years, my writing tools have morphed from yellow Ticonderoga pencils (elementary school), to ballpoint pen (middle school), to Flairs (college), to Rapidographs (art school), to nib fountain pens (around the time of my wedding [to make it fancy]), to rollerball pens (a little later), and back to pencils (now).
If I write by hand, the point will become dull. Thus … ta-da!! I’ll also need a pencil sharpener. I researched extensively. And since I was going retro, it had to be manual (like the one nailed to the wall in the coat room in first grade. Remember that room? It was off the main classroom. You kept your coat, art smock, and sneakers there.)
The description for my new sharpener called it commercial-grade for “high-volume environments, with dual cutters to sharpen with precision.” It also had a ”unique auto-stop feature to prevent over-sharpening” and was adjustable to eight sizes of pencils.
Sold! Sign me up. Here’s my credit card. How fast can it get here?
When the pencil sharpener arrived two days later, I unwrapped it with anticipation. I mounted it on the wall in the closet in my office. I was proud of my selection and, even prouder, that I wouldn’t be draining the grid with an electric pencil sharpener. Feh!
Before long, I was sharpening every single pencil in the house.
My family thanked me for being so helpful. The sharpener was great … until every time I cranked it, the thing jacked out of the wall. I was left standing there with the pencil sharpener in my hands, and lots of dull pencils.
I was certain the person working at the local hardware store would know what to do. (Anyone who works in a hardware store is a brilliant problem solver. I mean it.)
They said I would need a butterfly screw to latch the pencil sharpener into the wall but “even that might not work.” I would have to find a stud, which for me, is never an easy thing.
When I returned home, I packed up the manual pencil sharpener, shipped it back to Amazon and, decided to go electric. “Two AA-batteries will hardly deplete the environment,” I said to myself.
A few days later, the electric pencil sharpener arrived. No more cranking! No more fuss! No more mess! And the touted auto-stop mechanism took away the fear of gnashing my prized pencils to the nubs. With the acquisition of this new tool of the trade, another point works in my favor: As I harvest every pencil in sight, the mighty whir of the steel blades make it sound like I’m actually doing something here in my office.
With a full shavings tray in need of being dumped, one can see that I haven’t been distracted at all. I’ve been working. Working really hard (on sharpening my pencils).
Bonni Brodnick is the author of the soon-to-be-released memoir, “My Stroke in the Fast Lane: A Journey to Recovery” and “Pound Ridge Past,” now in its second edition. She is a contributor to HuffPost and formerly with Condé Nast Publications. Bonni has written scripts for Children’s Television Workshop, was a weekly newspaper columnist, and editor of two academic magazines. She is a member of Pound Ridge Authors Society and has a blog (bonnibrodnick.com). Bonni is also an Ambassador for the American Heart Association and a proud Stroke Survivor.
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