I took my daughter, Abby, to the local dollar store on the weekend because her birthday party is coming up and she needed to select some undoubtedly toxic, probably child-labor-produced gewgaws to put in the goody bags her friends will take home. It seems to me that when I was a freckle-faced urchin the only thing I took home from friends' birthday parties was gastric distress from slurping back too many root beer floats, but nowadays one is judged on the value and creativity of one's birthday goody bags, and I didn't want to disappoint.
For that matter, I can recall receiving as a birthday gift from Claus Heckerott a used Hardy Boys book in a brown paper lunch bag that had been festively stapled and scotch-taped. Compare that with Abby's haul from last year's 6th birthday bun-toss, where she was bestowed with pink plastic merchandise commensurate with the gross national product of Brazil, and you begin to see the depth of my resentment for my offspring.
I digress.
On the way out of the store I discovered the stationery aisle, which I navigated with all the temperance of Lindsay Lohan at a Mardi Gras parade. Steno pads, notebooks, retractable (!) felt tip pens, tape dispensers, and, finally, this...
