Retro Week: The 3mm mechanical pencil is the holy grail of mechanical pencils

Let's look all the way back to 1988, when NaturalBlog was at the height of geekdom. If blogging had been around back then, where might my pencil have taken me?

Of all the mechanical pencils I have in my collection, the 3mm mechanical pencil is by far the rarest and most valuable. It is clearly superior to the 7mm pencil that everybody -- and I mean everybody -- has. You can find those 7mm's just about anywhere. Even the drugstore.

But hunting the 3mm takes skill, patience, and a little bit of luck. It took a trip to the Office Depot store 45 minutes away to find mine. But boy were they jealous when I pulled it out of my Trapper Keeper by MEAD. They didn't know what him them.

When that 3mm pencil hit my paper, I felt like the king of the world.