Epic Win: Triangle Pencil Grips
Submitted by Jay C
If your parents sent you to school in the 80’s with the standard orange #2 pencils, your only salvation was the rubber triangular pencil grips. The combination of cool graphics pencils and triangle pencil grips propelled you to stardom. The only combination more awesome than any of these was the punk-rock kid who had triangle pencil grips and made intricate carvings into the #2 pencils his parents bought him using a pocket knife or a pen. Which kid were you?
I was the kid who was left handed and was perfectly fine with a regular number 2 pencil and whose stupid 4th grade teacher tried to get me to write right-handed using these devil grip thingies that caused me horrible hand and wrist pain. Thanks for the reminder.
I’m a leftie who’s teacher tried to do that to me in 1st grade. Didn’t work for me either.
maan i hate these things tho they r cool an funky my teachers usta force me to use them for my bad handwriting which just ruined the fun of them
That sucks. I’m a right who has never held his pencil the right way, but I always had neat handwriting compared to other kids, particularly cursive, so my teachers never made it an issue.
My teacher made me use these for my hand writing to. but in my case it was because I held my pencil in what she called a pinch grip which caused my hand to cramp up and tire quickly. They actually helped me. That and specially molded pencil grips that had grooves where my fingers were suppose to go.
I had one of those specially molded pencil grips too- my second grade teacher didn’t know that it was made for that very purpose and got mad for some reason, saying “that doesn’t belong there!” and made me take it off my pencil. Guess she thought it was an eraser or something.
I still have about 8 of these pencil grips. Why is it “nostalgia” when you can get that at just about any Staples in the world? Hmm? Nostalgia definition FAIL.
it’s nostalgic because these kick ass grips were used as status symbols or bartering tools. many a ho-ho and fruit punch were traded for these puppies, AND the cooler looking yours were the cooler you were….and they felt really really neat, like jelly…
I’ve seen comments like this all over this site. What does the continued availability of the item have to do with nostalgia? Nostalgia means “I remember having these things in elementary school, and now I’m 30.” Remembering is what makes the nostalgia, not any current absence of said object/show/etc.
My teacher actually supplied these to everyone in the class. I think I was one of her main targets because I used to hold my pencil with four fingers instead of three, and somehow this was going to cause world downfall.
I had the same sort of teacher in 3rd grade. We actualy had a weekly test on pencil holding. Yes, that’s right, a test… actualy graded on how we held a pencil.
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That sort of BS might have been important for a young lady in the victorian era, but it went out about the same time a type writer became affordable.
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I was a plastic gnawer so these were nibbles for me.
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My fave pencil was pink and had a little puffy worm on the end. ^^
My guess is now they (the teachers) are just happy if the kids don’t shoot each other.
Don’t worry, we four-fingered-pencil-holders will one day cause world downfall and then rebuild it into a world where no one’s pencil holding technique will be scrutinized! MWAHAHAHAH-ahem-oh there’s people here…
yeah it looks so good
My teacher kept trying to get me to use these.
Then I started smuggling my slingshot into school.
We reached an agreement in the end. No more pencil grips means no more pencil grips IN YOUR FACE. XD
oh man, I had so many of these, along with the matching pointy extra eraser ends…there was a company targeted towards kids that made them…with some weird looking guy as their logo..but I can’t remember the name!
anyone??
i remember too! but i cant remember the company name. its in my brain somewhere, just out of reach… i think they still sell their stuff at walmart, we should check there!
I think it’s BIC
“It’s my penname Pinky.”
“Oh, my pen’s name is BIC.”
YIkes was also a popular brand of things for pencils and paper etc.
Foohy? Is that the brand you are thinking of?
Dang, I’ve been looking for these! Seriously. It’s hard to score a baseball game with carpal tunnel.
When I was in 7th grade a teacher tried to force me to use one of these to make me hold my pencil “the right way” instead of the slightly not-usual way I had been writing for my entire life. The triangular pencil grip, I am sorry to say, was promptly tossed into the trash once the teacher walked away. What’s the difference how you hold your pencil, so long as you can write?
They sold these at my school store back in the 90s. I loved them! I think I used to chew on them though. ;>_>
I was also one of the kids who was forced to use these because she didn’t write correctly. I still don’t, so I suppose that the triangle pencil grips were a complete fail for me
I had no idea they were supposed to correct your hand posture. Then again, as someone said ^ I just chewed them.
yeah they were kind of tasty, at least here they didn’t try to force you to use them. I used them but only because the pencils were too skinny and I would get wrist and finger pain without them. In a pinch they worked as an eraser as well.
boo for the triangle ones woooo for the foamy ones
/ agree!
I used to eat mine.
These things are evil! They didn’t slide onto my pencil smoothly enough. I ended up stabbing my left thumb trying to get a red one on my pencil in second grade. I still have the blue dot where the graphite remained under the skin for years. At least the bump is gone now. Evil contraptions!
I remember the foamy ones that had rounded-out contours for your fingers (I was a child of the 90s, born in 85) but since I held my pencil CORRECTLY (complete with writing callus on the first knuckle of my right middle finger) they were never comfortable for me. I can’t figure that out.
I remember that i had the triangle ones at first and then the rubber ones with grooves made so your fingers could rest for the perfect way to hold a pencil. However it didnt’ improve my handwriting one bit. All they way into highschool my english teachers used to threaten me with failure if my handwriting didn’t improve… they just got better at reading it!
i was too busy eating them to remember which kid i was….
the wierd kid who ate pencis!! and can’t spell, hahahahaha
Ate mine, too…and the erasers…:P
Nice and chewy…
Damn! I had to use those because a teacher of mine said I had bad handwriting. I still have the scar of the callouses I got from using it.
I had a purple one 6 years ago. I had terrible handwriting untill was about 11.
I’m glad to see I’m not alone in the “kid that ate things” club. I didn’t eat them eat them, I just liked to chew on them. Now Play-Doh and that salty kindergarten paste…those I ate.
mmmmm….paste
Paste is salty? My Elmer’s glue always tasted sweet.
lol i hated those grips, altho they were fun to throw at my friends
My 3rd grade teacher forced everyone to have these – and she didn’t give them out…no, you had to buy them from the school store. They were 25 cents, I believe, but I was a rather poor child and never had the money. I remember my mother having to come to school and bring me a freaking quarter so I could buy one and be allowed to participate in class. What a joke! I don’t see why I HAD to use one. Sure, Handwriting was the only subject I had ever gotten a “needs improvement” score in, but even with that thing, it was still bad. Some people just have bad handwriting! Argh!
Mom should have threatened to sue the school for extortion. One letter from a fake legal firm will make schools do ANYTHING.
So are all you guys with the ‘bad’ handwriting doctors? XD I think all the teachers who tried to force lefties to ’switch hands’ should be forced to use their left hands in everything. I had a friend who is now totally uncoordinated because they forced her to use her right hand–it corrupted her sense of balance. Note: I married a lefty. My oldest is a lefty, my youngest is a righty (like me).
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BTW I also object to teachers trying to eliminate people’s native tongues. Teach them to be multi-lingual, not disabled (trying to exist in a english-speaking world without learning what it means isn’t a good idea; neither is forbidding people to speak their native tongue when they’re learning english).
But in order to compete really well in a mostly English-speaking country, one should be able to master English. I’m not saying they should completely ditch his/her Native language, but it IS unreasonable to expect everywhere/everyone s/he needs to be/interact with should have a translation for him/her or understand him/her.
And full immersion is generally a really good way to learn a language quickly. I have this view because of my teacher ed. courses and because my friend who came from Chile with Spanish as his native tongue didn’t learn too much English until he was in an all English classroom. If there is always a translator there, there is no need to learn the language. Teacher’s aren’t saying they aren’t allowed to speak their native tongues, just that they aren’t allowed to on classwork, homework, tests, or activities in which all students in a group and/or the teacher do not understand the native tongue. (Listening to groups is very important for a teacher.) By all means, the kids may speak their native tongue at recess, at home, or elsewhere outside of school, but during classtime English should be used.
I have a hazy memory of eating one of these.
I always have some of these (both triangular and foamy) in my bag because I have a lot of elderly clients whose grip is failing and need some help to use a normal sized pen. Not quite so funky … and not that nostalgic, either – they come from the disability aids shop.
these are so hard to get on + off pencils!
I didn’t eat my pencil grips, just my pencils. I also had a ton of ink pens dry out to because I ruined the caps while busy writing. I chew every thing!
I used to bite the hell out of these things when my teeth were coming in.
My only complaint is that they didn’t taste better.
I don’t know, I never got into them. I remember everyone else having them though.