In middle school, I didn’t need a banging resume, witty Instagram bio, or professional-yet-beautiful LinkedIn photo to let people know who I was. Heck, Instagram didn’t even exist yet and I was still a certified child. The only skills I could have put on a resume were successfully watches The Secret Life of the American Teenager without her parents knowing and has great taste in frozen yogurt toppings (2009 was a big year for fro-yo and teen pregnancy). What I mean is, at age twelve, I could sum myself up fairly easily. What was my personal brand, you ask? Answer: pencil cases. Yes, my fully-stocked, unique-as-fuck, portable pouches were my signature accessories and ultimate identifiers. And I freaking loved them.
Allow me to disrupt a common misconception about pencil cases: they’re not just for pencils. They’re for drugs! Kidding. Again, I was a child. These little zip-up bags were closer to personal statements á la The Common Application than they were to vehicles for writing utensils. My pencil case allowed me to show up on the first day of sixth grade feeling fly. So while I was rockin’ freshly minted braces, bell bottom khakis, and a polo shirt with no bra (even though, as Delilah promptly told me by my locker, I needed one), I wasn’t embarrassed. Why? Because who needs good looks or acknowledgement from your unrequited tween love when you have an orange, corduroy pencil case. (Yea, I know, ladies: corduroy).
After all, this was before the Etsy epidemic, so my signature pencil case, purged from the depths of an Office Depot clearance bin, was a symbol of all my hard work (not just a click confirming my order). My pencil case was a badge of honor that made me feel like a true queen—braces and all. It accommodated my hoard of glitter pens, mechanical pencils with neon erasers, and collection of rainbow highlighters. I stuffed the case like the fanny pack of a middle-aged mother on a trip to Disney. I was armed with whatever my hypothetical child needed. Tissues? Yup. Hand-sanitizer? Uh-huh. The cool, key-chain kind from Bath & BodyWorks? Of course. I’m not a crazy person! Purell sucks. To this day, I still associate the scent of Lemon Verbena hand sanitizer with learning about volcanoes.
In short, I wasn’t messing around when it came to this pencil case. What pleased me most of all about it was the outside pockets, the very real and not at all for show pockets (designers love adding fake pockets to anything that a woman might want to buy). In those authentic pockets, I packed the holy grail of the pencil case realm: Wite-Out (which I only just realized is spelled like that). All I’m saying is, before quick-dry nail polish, there was Quick-Dry Wite-Out. Having it in my pencil case made me the go-to gal. It was like dealing—people wanted it that badly. And I was happy to give it to ’em, but for a price. And that price was a piece of Trident Layers gum.
I took on pencil-case curation as if it were another class, and soon enough, mine was like the magic bag from Mary Poppins (i.e. the one she pulls a freaking lamp out of). Keeping it stocked was only slightly exhausting and only highly competitive. I remember the first time I saw my friend’s Strawberry Shortcake-themed eraser duo. They smelled like strawberries (shocker) and were pliable like Silly Putty (actual shocker). My Wite-Out suddenly felt out-ranked and I felt the urge to find scratch ‘n sniff stickers, fast.
As the years rolled by, pencil cases began to lose their sparkle (but don’t worry, only metaphorically). This transition away from placing one’s worth on a zip-up pouch was probably a health move. My friends and I traded in our glitter pens for keyboards and promptly lost our ability to write by hand (only half-kidding). As for Wite-Out, well… frankly I’m surprised they’re still in business. When I think back on how much importance me and my friends placed on our individual pencil cases, I shake my head. Who would do such a thing? Who would care that much about a stupid bag? And then I unzip my backpack and pull out my new pencil case: college edition.
It has four pockets.
Illustration by Caroline Zerilli