Erasers and Pencil Cases How I Loved Thee

Erasers were like a toy you could bring to school and show off with. They were acceptable because they were a school supply. You could stare at them and smell them in class and they would bring you joy at a time when you were bored. Erasers were the number one cool thing to have as a little girl, along with stickers. I used mine as hopscotch markers, even though they were terrible because they bounced off the ground and right out of the squares.

Some erasers were so special, they came in a little case! You wouldn't DARE erase something with your erasers and get them all black. That would be stupid! You needed an ugly, smelly school eraser as back up. They tore your paper up and were far less superior in several ways, but that wasn't the point. You don't mess up your pretty erasers!

These ice cream bar erasers were really cute but they sucked. They didn't even erase! They were just rubber and had no use whatsoever.

Little Twin Stars

Remember the days when Sanrio only made pencils, erasers and school supplies like pencil cases? Now they have Hello Kitty car transmissions and tampons. I can't go into Sanrio stores anymore, I feel dizzy and delirious. My crunchberry theory applies to Hello Kitty as well: Once the product was too over saturated, it lost it's value in my heart! But let's go back to the times when there was only a little stand in the Hallmark store that carried the beloved erasers, scissors, tape and stickers.

Sanrio pencil cases were not run of the mill tin cases. They were padded vinyl and were totally James Bond-like. They would have buttons that when pushed would shoot out a little pencil sharpener or ruler or a secret compartment underneath. They were really well made and really cute.

The first thing I collected from Sanrio was erasers. I had about twelve of them on a little Hello Kitty chest of drawers. They smelled like bubble gum and looked like candy. I bit into several of them, because I was crazy like that. I also had to taste crayons, play-doh and paste and yes, even dog food kibbles. Stop looking at me like that, you know you tried them too!

Back in the day there was Hello Kitty (the cat), Little Twin Stars (the little angels) and My Melody (the bunny). Now there are like, 45 characters that look so sleek they should be airbrushed on the side of one of the cars on Fast and the Furious and shit. Hello Kitty first came out in 1974 on a vinyl coin purse in Japan and then migrated over here in 1976.There is literally a Hello Kitty restaurant, theme park and hospital in Japan. The owner of the hospital bought the Hello Kitty rights, thinking that the character would calm expectant mothers.

I had this little bag of pencils and accessories.

This was my prized possession- the My Melody stamp set. I got it in San Francisco and I stamped the hell out of every book I owned.

I also had these scissors, which were really nice stainless steel and worked better than my mother's. This is when the Twin Stars both had the same hair color, before the girl had pink hair and the boy had blue hair.

Oh..I forgot about Patty and Jimmy, the little American kids who played tennis. I had a little sticker book of these two in the early 80s and they were so cute, I wouldn't remove the stickers.Let's look at some Patty and Jimmy stuff!:

And then there is Tuxedo Sam!

Tuxedo Sam came around in the mid-eighties in the form of little fat markers

The lid to the marker was Sam's little sailor hat. He kind of looked like a weeble, but was flat on the bottom. He appeared to be geared more for boys, but that didn't deter me.

I think I am going to go hang my head in shame now for looking like Bridget in the Girls Next Door. Actually, this whole website is crazy, this post is the least of it!