We're Number Two!

By: Jeff Lagasse

I hate standardized tests. Whenever I hear mention of the upcoming standardized test, my butt starts throbbing (much like an old timer's toe will throb when it rains) in anticipation of being flattened by hard wooden desks. All the free cookies and milk in the world aren't enough to get me excited about the tests, but it's not the discomfort itself that unsettles me. I never feel adequate when I take a standardized test. It's not because of the subject matter; on that aspect, I usually approach the work with either confidence or indifference, so that doesn't matter to me that much. I feel inadequate because of my writing utensil.

I never have a number two pencil.

Sometimes, back when standardized tests were invented-- right after fire and the wheel-- the Test Making People, or TMP, decided that everyone taking the test should do so with a certain kind of pencil, and because everybody present at the TMP meeting had two eyes and two ears, they chose the number two. They rounded up a bunch of poor Brazilian children to gather environmentally safe wood from the rainforest to make these pencils. This cheap labor presented stiff competition to the makers of the number three pencils, the three-eyed trolls that live in the sewer.

They didn't make enough of these number two pencils, however, and to this day it remains a problem to get ahold of one in time for the big test. So many pencils are the clicky kind now that the owners of the coveted number two pencils are in good position to make a profit off their good fortune.

"Hey Fred, I hear you deal in number two's."

"Who's askin'?"

"Bubba sent me."

"All right, I'll let you have one for five bucks. But you don't tell anyone you got this off me!"

"You got my word, Freddy."

In fact, studies show that in the past year, dealers in number two pencils out-profit crack dealers by twenty five percent.

Parents are becoming so concerned that their children will use the pencils to get correctable scores on the standardized tests, so an online brochure called Parents And Number Two's: What You Can Say To Your Children is now available at www.numbertwo.org. The brochure urges parents to make sure their kids are not using the pencils to escape their problems.

As an act of defiance, I urge all of you to write a letter to the Test Making People, scorning them for forcing students to scrounge for number two pencils. You can make a difference. If enough people write, clicky pencils will be completely acceptable writing utensils for use in the standardized tests.

Hey, at least clicky pencil lead doesn't come from Brazilian rainforests.