The dilemma posed by Halloween pencils.

A problem only a neurotic could have.

I have these beautiful Halloween pencils that I love now in a way that a grown woman should not love a school supply. They lie in a drawer in my make-shift desk, unsharpened. Sometimes I open the drawer and take one of my favorites out and turn it over in my hands, hold it close to my eyes to take in all the Made in China fancy of it, the cat's gleaming eyes or the delicate lines of a Jack o'Lantern. I'll run my fingers over it to feel where some patterns, like purple metallic tree limbs, are pressed into the wood. And I think then that I should sharpen one and use it, take it to school and make little notes on yellow steno pads with it, draw little stick houses with square windows and squiggly smoke lines pouring out of a lop-sided chimney, that sort of thing. But then I think that if I sharpen it, it'll start to dwindle, and, before long, it'll be gone. Or if I take it to school, I may misplace it, lay it on top of another teacher's grade book and walk off absent-mindedly only to realize my blunder two hours too late.

So they lie there in the drawer, nagging at me in their leaden way. They are pencils and should be used as such, but using them will deplete them. Not using them, deprives them of their meaning. Using them, deprives them of their existence. Do you see what I mean?

This shouldn't be a problem.