Heidi was hoping to have Valentine's Day pencils to give to her students, but we haven't been able to find any this year despite looking in the usual places. Even so, when I told her I needed to make a quick stop at the grocery store this afternoon, she chose to tag along and asked if we could give that pencil hunt one more go.
The grocery store should have tipped us off. Is it possible that I have never been shopping on Valentine's Day Eve? It must be so because I was unprepared for the crowds we encountered.
The produce section was stuffed with extra floral displays, including a makeshift custom arrangement pop-up. Every other endcap had holiday-themed candy, cookies, or cupcakes, and every shopper had some Valentine's Day item in their possession. Meanwhile, the Valentine's Day proper display was wiped out. Gone were the cards and trinkets that children buy in sets of 20 for the kids in their classes. There were also no pencils.
Undeterred, we decided to check out the dollar store across the way. Oh my! First, there was zero parking, so I let Heidi out, and as I circled the lot, I saw a steady flow of folks carrying shopping bags with all manner of pink and red poking out the top, as well as many people trying to manage huge balloon bouquets as they made their ways to their cars through the gusty wind.
When, at last, I found a space and made my way into the store, I found chaos: children running and pushing down aisles lined with empty shelves and a line for the registers that ran all the way to the back of the place. But there were no pencils.
"They probably haven't made pencils since 2020," I laughed once we were back to the car. "It's taken this long to exhaust the existing supply, but somebody somewhere made the call that handwritten work was dead." I was only half kidding.
"Schools need pencils," Heidi scoffed.
"I'm sure someone will recognize that," I agreed. "But by then, there will be a tariff on them. No more cheap pencils for you!"
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