Even as a child I exhibited the classic symptoms of the anal retentive accountant type personality I would grow into. I get my perfectionism from my mom; my rapidly diminishing sit in front of the computer all day side comes from my dad. Good riddance. I used to take extreme interest in getting my pencils to the most perfect, sharpest point that I could. I would readily break the lead to get the point to where I was able to write with the tiniest of points.
Now that I have occasion to use red pencils again, I find that pencil sharpeners have themselves changed to thwart my desires. You can see the As Seen On TV ads now:
Are you tired of pencil sharpeners always breaking your leads? It makes it impossible to write and what a mess! Now you never have to break a pencil end again with the amazing new...
The design is basically the same. A razor blade set in a box with a conical opening in one end for the pencil. Some frickin' genius got the idea that if you angle the blade more sharply towards the opening end, you sharpen less of the pencil and no longer elongate the end of the lead so much that it breaks off. The lead is more structurally sound.
However, the end no longer gets pointy, as you're sharpening less of the pencil to expose the lead. So you end up with a chipped, sharded end that is impossible to write with in miniature.
I tell you, people, If it's not broke, don't fix it.
Also, I have very strange fixations.
Yes. Yes you do.
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