The Top 7 Pieces in the 7-Piece Geometry Set
Hard Pink Eraser
Sorry, Hard Pink Eraser. You finish dead last. You leave pink skid marks on graph paper and tear holes through worksheets. You don't erase at all -you highlight, underscore, and engrave, laughing in your trademark silence every time we try to use you. Plus, you're hard as a rock and generally crumble into tiny, unusable bits by Christmas holidays. About all you're good for is a one-time projectile. That's right. The only time you're half-decent is when we're throwing you away. On every other count, separately-purchased Soft White Eraser beats you every time.
Compass
You are an insolent jumble of complicated technology, Compass. You're the only tool that should come with an instruction book, because even when we figure out how to rig you up with Golf Pencil, we still can't figure you out. We spin the pencil and it lifts off the page. Your gleaming pinpoint centre-of-circle stabilizer slips and tears a hole in our graph paper, shredding through perfect equilateral triangles Flimsy Six-Inch Ruler helped us create, no problem. We give you some points for being the coolest looking tool in the math set, but we need functionality more than beauty. Get lost, Compass.
Flimsy Six-inch Ruler
Okay, Flimsy Six-Inch Ruler. Let's make one thing clear: as a ruler, you're a joke. First of all, you're only six inches long. Right off the bat, you're out for any of our big jobs. We can't use you for idle drawing on the back of our notes, we certainly can't use you in art class. Even for lines under five inches, you just, well, you've got nothing to hold on to. And sometimes you're only written in the metric system. That's great until we realize that 15 centimeters is tiny, too. You're good for the occasional pull-back-and-slap routine, but chances are that after hitting the kid next to us two or three times, you'll develop career-ending spider cracks and crumble into shards and dust. We don't rate you sixth or seventh because you are decent for small lines and you occasionally help shepherd our desktop eraser bits together, a noble and arduous task.
Triangle Ruler
We don't care what anybody says about you, Triangle Ruler. You're alright. See, you render Flimsy Six-Inch Ruler obsolete, and you one-up him with your 90-degree power. Who's our daddy when it comes to drawing right angles? You are, Triangle Ruler. You are.
Golf Pencil
Mr. Versatile, the Golf Pencil. You put up with Compass ruthlessly scratching off your yellow paint as you corset into him gamely. You stoically mark degrees with Protractor, draw right angles with Triangle Ruler, and put Hard Pink Eraser's incompetence on display for everyone to judge. You are the best team player in the geometry set. And you're not a bad team player out of the geometry set, too. As a golf pencil.
Protractor
Protractor, you're a decent guy. You're vital to success in the Geometry unit, and we really can't pinch hit for you-substituting, as we do, Triangle Ruler for Flimsy Six-Inch Ruler, any other pencil for Golf Pencil, or Soft White Eraser for Hard Pink. No, we need you. And you are there. Accurately measuring degrees, declaring acute! or obtuse! with confidence, even pinch-hitting for Compass when that robotic recluse fails again to make a proper circle. Plus, you're all business. You don't double as a projectile or a weapon. You know what you're there for and you do it, every time. You're the Tim Duncan of the Geometry Set.
The Tin Itself
We love you, Tin Itself. Reliable, durable, and bigger than your Altoids-toting cousins, you are sturdy and survive long past the children you've birthed. You're clearly the nerdy older brother. You lug around a math set, but you're so much more. Your interlocked metallic hinges open and close with ease and your ridged lip locks you into place tightly. Years go by, and you are there still, hugging pebbles from a Caribbean beach vacation tightly, embracing Zip-Loc baggies of marijuana lovingly, or even just hanging on just to hang on, empty inside but nowhere near dead. Ready to hold and protect whatever we assign to you, any day, any time. Congratulations, Tin Itself. You are a true number one.
