What your school pencil case said about you

Happy National Stationery Week!

(No, us neither).

But, despite not being the most famous of national holidays, Stationery Week has got the Lifestyle desk feeling all nostalgic. Remember the sheer joy of doing a back-to-school stationery shop every September?

Choosing which pencil case would be defining your sartorial choice of the year to come, sharpening your pencils and, if you were really anal, writing your name on them. Such pure, joyful times.

Little did we know that the choices of writing utensils were, in fact, a reflection of who we were.

The playboy pencil case is the physical representation of ‘you can't make me, you’re not my real dad.’

It was usually owned by a girl with poker straight, sun-in dyed hair, who wore a full face of Maybelline Dream Mousse foundation to school every day, and used concealer as lipstick. ‘No offence, but’ was her catch phrase (followed by something devastatingly offensive, of course).

Enjoyed playing the same three (really shit) songs off her Motorola Razr phone at the back of lessons. Even the teachers were a bit scared of her.

Watch this one, she's steely.

She (let's face it, gel pens were predominantly a female preserve) might seem fluffy, but there is iron in her soul. You don't keep an entire set of gel pens together for a whole term, including their lids, without determination. If you borrow one, she’ll watch you like a hawk.

She might even ascertain how much you’re planning to use it before she hands it over. A bit of underlining is fine. Colouring in, obviously, is not.

If she had the scented type, you needed to be extra careful that you didn't piss her off.

She's probably in the army, or working as a top divorce lawyer these days.

A classic pencil case was just too simple, wasn't it?

There are two types of pencil tin owner, those who spent lessons trying to pierce the lid with a compass and let it fill up with pencil shavings (not one to get into a fight with) and those who keep a pristine tin.

Either way, the pencil-tin owner liked to be different. Or at least think they were different. They probably had one Swiss parent or a boyfriend who lived in Canada, and just couldn't be the same as everyone else.

You know what's really, really annoying? The noise of someone clanging their tin pencil box around while they try and get a biro out of it.

The owner of the huge pencil case wasn't allowed to have a fun one, because their parents forced them to have one that fits a full-length ruler.

He or she is now probably the owner of a tech start-up.

Being forced to carry the pencil case of shame by an overbearing parent, who topped it up with highlighters, protractors and special shading pencils on a termly basis despite the fact that no-one needs that much stationery, is bascially child abuse.

Being mocked for carrying around the contents of a full sized WHSmiths will have been the character building experience which forged their empire.

They probably whimper ‘I’ve got a spare compass’ when they climax.

Can I have a Coke pencil case please."

"Is Pepsi alright?" pic.twitter.com/uG3ZMvursA

— Because I'm a Guy (@CauseWereGuys) June 28, 2015

This guy is a such a laugh! He's so funny! He's such a legend! Even his pencil case is whimsical!

There's something kind of sad behind his eyes, and looking back you wonder if maybe he was just lighting his farts in the common room because he desperately wanted some approval.

You deleted him on Facebook at some point during uni because he kept sharing moderately racist memes.

We’d all hate singular biro person if they weren't so insanely great.

Singular biro person, male or female, is incredibly good looking, sails through life and is good at everything. While you were frantically sweating and trying out every single biro you owned, before placing them in a clear plastic bag on the eve of your Biology GCSE, this person was probably reading Satre in bed with an older lover.

They turn up to lessons, revision sessions and exams with said singular biro, and write something way more brilliant than you ever could, despite having an entire box of Bics.

Since school, they briefly modelled for Zadig and Volatire, had a fling with either Callum Best or Lindsay Lohan and now runs an organic yam milk business which, apparently, Gwyneth Paltrow loves.

No stationery person is the way that young people learn how unfair life is.

They’ll sidle up late to everything and forget their textbook, which means you have to spend the whole hour at an awkward angle ‘sharing’ your book, despite the fact that you were the one who remembered to bring it.

Then, when the note-taking portion of the lesson starts, they’ll ask if they can ‘borrow’ a pen.

You can't say no, obviously, because that would mean you were a dick, but when they hand you the pen back at the end of the lesson with a chewed up lid and actual saliva running down the interior of the plastic tubing, you seriously consider how a spell in a bad juvenile detention centre could be.

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