Upthread I said I hadn’t used one in years, so I’m not some pencil enthusiast calling you out.
How old are you that you’ve never used a pencil?
I wonder if there is a cultural element as well. It strikes me that the Germans (and the Japanese) tend to be less willing to accept lower quality in exchange for convenience.
Pencils are so last century. Why use an outdated technology when we have pens. Just like books. Why would I read a murdered tree when I can read the internet.
You’ve never painted the triangle yellow and so forth? 
Were you using a “pencil sharpener”? You should have been using a sharpening knife and either a file or a piece of sandpaper. You sharpen up the tip with the sandpaper, and when the tip becomes too short you carve off some more wood with the knife. Which doesn’t stress and break the core.
But like you, I shifted to mechanical pencils with fixed-width leads. In my case, because I wasn’t any good at drafting, and needed all the help I could get.
[The kids in the school here are still using pencils with no eraser. Pencils with erasers are cheap Chinese imports, and the erasers are never taught in schools]
Painted the triangle yellow?
As a little child, exercises painting inside the lines, to teach colors and shapes and exercise coordination and manual dexterity. “Paint the triangle yellow… pain the square red… pain the circle blue…”
Oh okay, thanks.
Nothing like painting the town red, which I think is an American saying.
Well, that settles it.
This. Europe is not a country. In Europe there’s are many countries and they have pencils with erasers.
Business casual…I see all that worn with short-sleeve dress shirts. Say it ain’t so.
And socks with the sandals. * shudder *
Socks with sandals is my favorite combination.
And by chance, I was reading this last night:
How is it possible for anyone alive today to have never used a pencil? For elementary school art classes if nothing else?
My daughter is in 3rd grade in a well-off district, and they have iPads and computers, but plenty of their work is still done with paper and pencil. The pencils have erasers, by the way.
There are some of you out there. But yeah, * shudder *
Proof that many people, myself included, need to get a life. TWO pages on pencil erasers???! Hard to imagine a more trivial topic.
I have a computer and several types of pens at my desk. And i also have my trusty Dixon Ticonderoga pencil, with its useful eraser. I like the way it feels when i write with it. I like the precision of the extremely fine point i can put on it, and i like being able to erase. I don’t use it every day, but i use it often enough that it earns its spot on my desk.
It’s oxidizing. Ozone is a big culprit. Same thing causes rubber bands to get brittle and break.
Key fobs.
No…
Paper clips! A thread on which size is the best. I believe there are three, but I see no reason for the tiny ones, or the large ones. A bundle of paper that thick needs a clasp.
The number of posts per page is not a fixed number; it’s set by the user (within certain limits).