I have two sons. Which means, when it comes to Christmas, birthday or other gifts, we tend to lean more toward Nerf guns, Legos and action figures. So, I missed the Barbies. The Easy Bake ovens. And, I missed the princess gifts.

While it’s kind of sad, I know I would have been lost in the weeds trying to do the princess thing. Oh, sure I would have eventually done well shopping for my daughter, but it would have taken a lot of practice to get good at it.

So, you might wonder why I have these on my workbench. Let me start off by telling you that these are mechanical pencils, and they are indispensable. I much rather prefer mechanical pencils to wooden models for a few very important reasons.

First, if the lead breaks on a mechanical pencil, you simply have to push the button on the eraser to advance a new length of lead to jump right back to work, instead of looking for a pencil sharpener to get to the point.

Another great feature of mechanical pencils is that since the lead is the same diameter from the point to the end, the line stays the same width along the entirety of the mark. Try doing that with a sharpened wooden pencil, and you are going to end up with a fine line where you start and a much wider line the more you mark.

When I buy my mechanical pencils, I always buy them in big packages, usually at the start of the school year when the supply is plentiful and the prices are low. It also doesn’t hurt that during that time of the year, Florida exempts school purchases from sales tax, making the deal a little sweeter.

But, why the pretty sparkly aqua, pink, purple and orange princess colors?

Do these guys look like they would be caught dead in school using a pretty princess pencil? This way, I can pretty much guarantee that my mechanical pencils will stay in my shop, and not be spirited of into backpacks to never be seen again.