As we were cleaning out the closet the other day, Mr. Ginley repeated one of his tired, old chestnuts.
"I remember when I was a kid, I only got the 8-count box of Crayola Crayons. YOU people must have been rich, YOU had the 64-count box," he lamented.
Apparently, the Senior Mr. Ginley, who worked for Glidden Paints his entire career (and knew his ecru from his beige), told his son that all he needed were the primary colors. "Just mix yellow and blue, and you've got green. You don't need 64 crayons."
But I digress.
While my family was certainly not in a class with the Rockefellers, we did possess the coveted 64-count box of Crayolas. And yes, it came with the built-in sharpener. However, I was not the first child who got to use the crayons. Like a treasured heirloom, they were handed down from child to child until I, Child #5, was granted access. By that time, their wrappers had been torn away and the little darlings sharpened down (or broken down) into sad, sorry stubbins.
In a valiant effort to sustain the once-grand coloring sticks, my sister, Diane, insisted they be returned, in some sort of order, to the original box, which by then was becoming a sad relic.
Of course, there are always certain colors that maintain their youthful beauty – like the white crayon, which is essentially worthless unless you happen to be writing on black construction paper. We weren't permitted to use the construction paper, except for school projects, so the white crayon was largely spared.
All of this explains why we have TWO 64-count boxes of crayons sitting in our closet.
As long as they are there, sitting upright in their mostly-pristine state, I can feel just a bit decadent. At any time, I can inhale their waxy fragrance, pluck out a yellow-orange, burnt sienna or one of 62 other beauties in the box and color a page to my heart's delight.
Best of all, no one will scold me for coloring outside the lines.
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