Two things I learned today: there is a blog dedicated to office supplies and on that blog is a set of Ticonderoga pencils with antimicrobial coating.
OfficeSupplyGeek apparently bought these latex-free and antimicrobial pencils so he could test out a new pencil sharpener. He, like me, feels this is a bit disingenuous:
My non-scientific opinion here is that if you want to make sure your kids, or you yourself dont pick up some germs at work or at school, wash your hands with warm water and regular soap, get a good nights sleep, and eat a healthy diet. Dont let manufacturers of office supplies or other products convince you that the way to go is lathering up everything with chemicals and relying on a quick and easy short cut to protect you from the Swine Flu or some other virus or epidemic.
Seriously. It’s a pencil. It’s probably covered in e-coli, herpes viruses, and poop and, if it was in my pencil box in grade school, powdered Smarties.
It also seems like OfficeSupplyGeek is very worried about people stealing his pictures of pencils so I left his warning in the image as a fairly accurate representation of the work we do here at CG in the first place.