Saturday, June 6, 2015

Between the Lines

I was sitting in the dentist's waiting room, waiting for my son, listening to some dreadful satellite radio station and admiring the gewgaws on the walls, when my eyes landed on an area set up for the youngest patients. And there they were -- a stack of coloring books and the 64-count box of Crayola crayons.

It was all I could do not to run across the room, seize a coloring book, and inhale the intoxicating scent of my childhood. I wanted to take the burnt sienna and the blue-violet (or was it violet-blue?) and color up a storm.

As a child, it seems I had the same few coloring books. For some reason, I never finished an entire book. There were always clean pages crying out for splashes of color.

Sorry to say, I was not a neatnik. I did not confine myself to conventional colors, and, in spite of my sister's admonitions, I was never able to stay in the lines. I was too impatient to get the colors on the page. To see how Mrs. Beasley would look in a pink dress (instead of blue). Or to see Buffy in green hair. Or Mr. French with hair.

Then, on the internet, I stumbled across a coloring book for adults. (No, it didn't have naughty pics in it, get your head out of the gutter.) These coloring books had elaborate patterns using floral and geometric themes. Admittedly, I was intrigued. I am even toying with the idea of going out and buying a coloring book. Not of the adult variety, however. I have a notion that coloring all of those teeny-tiny spaces would counteract the therapeutic benefit.

I'm hoping that: 1. They still make coloring books for kids. 2. That I can find said books. 3. That they have things in them that I want to color. (Yes, shut up, it matters.)

The next question will be whether to use the tin of broken crayons I have here, or to indulge myself in a brand new deluxe box of 64 Crayola Crayons.

And the final question...does it still have the built-in crayon sharpener?

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