The other day, while poking around a friend’s toy room, I made a gristly discovery: Deep within the bowels of this toy room, hidden behind all the boxes of Magz-X construction toys, vintage Lincoln logs, and enough Thomas the Tank Engine train track to deforest the entire island of Sodor, there lurked… a crayon making machine. I was aghast: What kind of person makes their own crayons?
In my house, not only do I not make crayons, I usually refuse to buy them as well. In fact, any stray crayon that does manage to find its way through my doors can expect to receive the same kind of treatment that a stray gazelle might receive from a lioness on the prowl; only the crayon, instead of ending up as a pile of horns and hooves on the savannah, will most likely end up as a bright speck of citron yellow at the bottom of the trash can. But this, apparently, was not the case in this house; in this Bizarro World they not only fully supported the rights of all crayons to exist, they actively participated in the process of making them as well. It was enough to make me wonder what other horrors I would find in this house: Bathtubs full of homemade gin? Basement rooms full of crystal meth? Maybe even a puppy mill in the backyard?
My first instinct, of course, was to deliver a sharply worded lecture on the inadvisability of bringing more crayons into a world full of white walls with eggshell finish, but, for once, I bit my tongue. After all, maybe there was a reasonable explanation as to why two seemingly normal individuals would want to make their own crayons. (Even though, the last time I checked crayons were something like ten packs for a dollar at the local drugstore.) Maybe, though, there was something going on that I didn’t know about, like back in the 1970s when I continued to indulge in Nestle’s chocolate products, blissfully unaware of the international boycott. Could this be the same thing all over again? Had I, with my occasional purchase of store-bought crayons, inadvertently led to the continuation of intolerable working conditions in the crayon mines? Were the big crayon makers, even now, depleting the ozone layer with their foul bursts of burnt sienna and ochre? Or, worse yet, was the international trade in crayons merely a front for terrorist cells the world over? Every time my son, Clyde, colored on the walls, was he really coloring with Osama? (That I could believe).
Or maybe it was just a personal choice on their part. Maybe they were getting ready for the big move off the grid. Maybe the crayon maker was just the first step in their struggle towards self-sufficiency, and even now they were also making plans to grind their own flour and sew their own clothes. If I looked hard enough, would I also find the place where they were saving their used cooking oil and fireplace ashes in preparation for making their own soap?
Finally, when none of these theories proved satisfying I did what most people would probably have done in the first place: I asked. Unfortunately, the answer I received was less than edifying. “The crayon maker?” they gushed, “It’s great. You take all the little bits of broken crayons, put them in here, and then you get a great big colorful new crayon.”
Ah.
Clearly, I had been correct in my first theory: I had inadvertently entered the Bizarro World, where parents not only bought toys for their children, but allowed them to play with them as well. (The toy room should have been my first clue). It was, of course, slightly disappointing to find out how baseless all of my other theories were, but at the same time it did give me one thing to look forward to: At least now I know where to go the next time I want to pick up a few bottles of really cheap gin, some meth, and a new puppy.