Hi, my name is Salma and I have a problem.

I try to refrain from using pens. For some reason, every time I use a pen, I tend to get carried away doodling with it. I don’t even have to have paper around; I’ll draw on myself with it if there isn’t anything else to doodle on. I can’t tell you how many times I came home from school with hearts drawn on my hand and my mom thought I was in love with some boy at school. It’s just one of those standard shapes everyone draws. She never said anything when I came home with geometrical shapes drawn on me: “Salma! Why do you have boxes drawn on your hand!? Are you going to pack and move somewhere?” I’m not sure why I do it, it’s just a compulsion. Whatever the reason, I figured this out about myself in high school, so ever since I’ve been using pencils.

At work, I always have to have some sort of writing utensil handy incase I have to make a quick correction on drafts, jot down reminders on a Post-it or write some notes down during a meeting. There’s always something that I need to write. So, I started carrying a pencil behind my ear. That way I don’t have to hold it in my hand, but it’s always handy. During the day if I get tired of my hair being in my face, it also works as a great tool to keep my hair up: I just twist my hair and stick the pencil through; it works perfectly.

However, there is a problem. I’ve gotten so use to having a pencil on my ear, that now I don’t even notice that it’s there. There have been days where I’ll have my hair tied up with a pencil, I’ll have a pencil tucked behind my ear and I’ll be writing with a different pencil in my hand. Sometimes, I walk out of the office at the end of the day and there is still a pencil somewhere on me. I didn’t realize this until recently when I started noticing that all of my pencils were “disappearing” from my desk. At first I thought that someone must have just grabbed it off my desk, I must’ve left it somewhere in the office or some rat needed wood to build a fence around its house (okay, not really. If we have rats in our building they probably use gates and have security guards. After all, this is a high-rise in Downtown we’re talking about). Whatever. It wasn’t that big of a deal; it’s not like our office had a shortage in supply of pencils. I didn’t really think much of it. Then, a few nights ago as I was cleaning my apartment, I found about 8 pencils. I cleaned out my car the other day and found 5 more. I don’t know what to do. I’m a kleptomaniac, exclusively with pencils. Okay, well maybe that’s an exaggeration. I do not need to steal the pencils; I just forget that they’re on me so I take them home. You believe me....right?

I really need to break this habit of taking pencils home with me. I’m not sure how I can make a conscious effort to stop something I do subconsciously. Now that I think about it, I don’t even know why I use pencils at all. I should be traumatized by them really. When I was in kindergarten, this kid stabbed me with a pencil and the lead got stuck in my arm. I still have a scar from it. Why did he stab me you ask? Well, we had the same birthday and we got into an argument about who was older. I told him I was older, he said he was older, we argued, the argument escalated, he pulled out a pencil and jabbed it in my arm. As it turns out, he was actually a year older...I started school a year early. Maybe that’s why I carry a pencil around all the time: in case someone starts arguing with me, I can have a pencil ready to jab into their arm before they do. Ronald (that was his name), if I ever see you again...I’m 23 and I’ll jab you in the arm if you don’t believe me.

My name is Salma and I am a pencil thief ninja.