Beware the deadly pencil sharpener

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The first experience with pencils I had was in kindergarten. A friend of mine stabbed me. With a pencil. On my hand. Some lead was wedged under my skin. Teary eyes and a trip to the nurse followed.

When I was in 6th grade, I had an emotionally scarring experience with a pencil sharpener. I was abnormally picky with the pointedness of my pencils. They had to be sharp enough to kill a man. Through his eye! This caused me to sharpen my pencils many times during the day.

Unfortunately, I had an uncanny ability to break the pencil's lead in the sharpener, resulting in me digging around the blade with my friend's pens.

And then, of course, the inevitable happened. One day, as I was fiddling with the sharpener, the lead of the pencil, which was jammed in the sharpener, snapped out. Right into my eye. IT. HURT.

I repeatedly began rubbing at my eye in vain, asking "Is my eye red?!" However, the problem increased:

As the reader might have guessed, I excused myself to the nurse's office, where I was greeted by a kind lady who instructed me to rinse out my eye and wait for her to come back. Except for she never returned.

So I left.

I stumbled through the next classes in agony, my heart pounding with adrenaline and my eye throbbing in pain. Was my eye going to fall out?!

When I finally stumbled home, I immediately had my father schedule an emergency eye appointment.

Unfortunately, the doctor was extremely inefficient.

Me- I think there is something in my eye.

Doctor (After a quick diagnosis) - There's nothing in your eye. Some kids feel things in their eyes, even if it's not there. It's just a phantom feeling.

Me- I really think there's something in my-

Doctor- NO! THERE IS NOTHING IN YOUR EYE!

His prescription was to go home and to go to bed normally. But even sleep was not a consolation. It hurt to shut my eyes.

In the morning when I woke up, I performed surgery on my own eye. Not really, but when I was putting in my contacts, I saw a big black lump in my eye. Scared out of my mind, I ran screaming to my father, who, unlike the doctor, assisted me in removing the pencil lead from my eye.

I have had a fear of pencils ever since, and from that moment on always used pens. I still do.



On an additional note, another pencil lead experience happened today as well. My friend broke her pencil lead. I laughed, which made her playfully throw it at me. It landed in my mouth. I quickly doubled over in a motion that looked like I was being sick and spat into my hand the lead which had landed so unfortunately in my mouth.

- Amelia