The Saga of the Magic Rub Eraser

Several weeks ago Megan elementary school sent out the school supplies list. I was able to find most of what we needed at Target and a few other stores, except the Magic Rub Eraser and hand sanitizer.

I wasn't worried about the hand sanitizer. I had the same problem last year (for some reason, even though it is on every child's school list, retailers don't stock it in sufficient quantities in August) and ended up waiting a couple of months into the school year to send some in.

As for the eraser, I kept my eye out for it but it didn't seem to be stocked anywhere. Last weekend I gave up and bought a two pack of generic pink erasers. Since the supply list indicated that all the supplies would be pooled for common use, it didn't seem like a big deal.

I wish I had spent the time before school started.

Turns out that Megan's class doesn't have common supplies after all. The children keep their own personal cache of supplies at their desk. Megan's desk mate noticed that Megan didn't have the "right' kind of eraser immediately. And commented on it, possibly in a mean way. While I don't know exactly what happened, I do know that Megan's feelings were quite hurt.

The friction between the two girls continued the second day, and the third. Apparently all due of the lack of a Magic eraser. Megan was convinced that if she had the right eraser, this girl would be nice to her. I didn't believe it, but I kept that opinion to myself. Instead I embarked on a mission to find this eraser so my child would not be teased at school.

If I wanted to get it from Amazon, I would have to buy a carton of 432. That seemed like too many, plus they wouldn't arrive until the end of the week - too late for my needs. So I redoubled my efforts to find it locally. After I dropped Megan at gymnastics yesterday, I tried the office supply store in town. They carried it, but were out of stock. They directed me to a framing and art supply store down the road. They also carried the eraser but were out of stock. Driving back to gymnastics, I spotted another framing store and once I was parked I called them. They didn't carry anything other than frames and referred me to the first framing store I visited.

And then someone suggested Michael's. I thought it was a long shot, but I called them and the woman I spoke to said they had three in stock. Since there wasn't enough time to get to the store and back, I had to wait 10 antsy minutes for the class to be over. I was sure that they would all be gone by the time we finally got there.

And it turns out the shelf was empty when we arrived. I wanted to have a tantrum. Luckily the nicest clerk saw us and took my cause on for her own. When she couldn't find it on the shelf either, she took down the number and started looking through the stock storage boxes. There weren't any in the first box, but in the second there were about a half dozen. I had to restrain myself from buying them all. We settled on three is a good number of Magic Rub erasers.

This morning I e-mailed all of the parents from Megan's kinder class to let them know where I found the elusive eraser. I four very heartfelt thank-you messages by the end of the day. It was nice to know that I wasn't the only one who had a hard time fining the damn thing.

And it turns out that having the right eraser did make a difference. Megan's desk-mate's eraser broke today and Megan gave her one of her extra Magic Rubs. I can't say they actually like each other yet, but the hostilities seem to have cooled.