Hoarders: Crayola Edition

I'm a hoarder of Crayolas.

Okay, maybe I'm not a hoarder. That's a bit extreme. I don't have boxes of crayons piled from floor to ceiling. It's not a maze of Crayola products when you walk into my house, with rotten lettuce stuck to the bottom of your shoes. You're not kicking rat nests aside as you traipse through my living room that smells like melting wax and dry, crusty marker, and something a bit earthy.

I don't have green and yellow boxes on top of boxes of 24-count crayons piled on top of each other. I don't have bins filled to the brim with back-to-school boxes of 10-count fatty markers, you know, the one with pink and gray.

That's a Crayola hoarder.

It's not to the point where I need my own show on TLC or TRU where you watch, not because you feel sorry for me, but because you can't turn away.

I am not necessarily a hoarder. I do throw markers away the minute they show any sign of drying up.

When I was a little kid, I used to stick those felt tips to my tongue and moisten them with my spit to get them to work again.

That's gross, isn't it? Maybe I am a hoarder.

A friend that lived down the street from me (when I was a kid) would do that. She would dab the marker on her tongue to wet it. I thought that was a cool thing to do, so I did it, too.

When I dabbed the fat marker tip to my tongue, luckily it was non-toxic. Who knows what ugly medical problems I would've had if those markers were, say, the really stinky kind. The ones where the fumes make you dizzy while you color in your posters for Senior Class President.

What does all this have to do with my hoarding of Crayolas?

Nothing, really.

I have always loved art supplies. I think it goes along with my infatuation with school supplies.

There's something about finishing up a notebook that makes me feel accomplished. Recently, I've been filling up composition notebooks with my own teaching notes, with doodles and minimal writing. I enjoy them because it showcases that I've been thinking, that I'm constantly trying thinking of as many thinks that I can think.

Plus, I like the organic feel of the pen-on-paper. After a full day of typing emails, working with the online yearbook program, and editing stories online, the moment I drag my pen across that lined paper, endorphins burst into my bloodstream and I feel just a tad bit better than I did the moment before.

I mean, I'm all 21st Century like the next person when it comes to writing (because I can type at the speed of my thinking), but that sensation of a ball point pen (I prefer the cheap Cristal Bics) dragging across the lined-page, making it curl I press so hard, gives me shivers.

I've kept a notebook since middle school. In college, I started to making them more visual. I don't consider myself an artist, so I'm not going to purchase the best of the best supplies.

That's where Crayola comes in. Throughout the years, they've introduced different markers and crayons, and I'm always adding those to my collection.

One of the stores out there doesn't help my infatuation.

Target.

And recently, they've come out "My Color Is..." One color. Eight different ways to showcase it. The pack has a window marker, a colored pencil, two types of markers, a twistable crayon, a color stick (think colored pencil/crayon hybrid that looks like a pastel), and a slick stick (think twistable crayon that's like writing with lipstick).

It's monochromatic mayhem.

Sadly, though, out of all the colors, I'm still missing purple and yellow.

I think it's time to go online and order the last two to add to my collection.