Sitting in my desk for the first time in a new school room filled with children I didn't know, I tried to busy myself to avoid meeting the curious stares.
The new books were interesting, but what really caught my attention was the little hole in the top right hand corner of my desk.
I decided it must have been designed as a clever way to dispose of my paper scraps and pencil shavings. I carefully designed a little basket out of construction paper and situated it beneath the hole to hold any trash I dropped through the hole.
It wasn't until the following year when I lamented the fact that my new desk didn't come with the same trash hole feature that my desk in my previous grade had, that I found out they weren't designed for trash, but to hold little ink wells.
I couldn't quite wrap my mind around having to use an ink well to write, and was glad I got to use it as a hole to pass my trash through instead of a hole to hold my ink.
I remember those holes in my desk. We never did use them to hold ink wells, but i guess the desks were older and just had them.
ReplyDeleteI remember the little ink wells. I have used them!!
ReplyDeleteHow many people still use a fountain pen? Most kids today wouldn't know how use one. My dad and I are both left-handed, and the nibs on our pens wore to one side. Mum and my sister were right-handed; we couldn't use their pens and they couldn't use ours.
ReplyDeleteI can see how you'd think that with not needing to use them for their intended purpose.
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