Tip 76: The Big Eraser

Okay finally going to write this bitch.

I have an eraser, I don't really know what the technical term for it is, but you can find similar erasers for about $0.50 at your local drug store. Its one of them big erasers, they typically come in gray, pink and white, mine happens to be white This is at least my third year using this eraser. I used it extensively in both of my previous two school years. I love my eraser.

Recall the days gone by when you would use up the eraser on your pencil and you would put one of those end cap erasers on it. Those come in fun shapes like sports balls, they were popular about fourth grade or so for me.

Now I use mechanical pencils and I much prefer them to traditional pencils (more on this in another tip maybe). Mechanical pencils come in a wide variety of designs but the cheap and most common variety have a small eraser that must be removed to put in more lead. Due primarily to my previously alluded to (in older posts, not this one) OCD, I became attached to certain pencils. This becomes problematic when it comes time to put in more lead. At first it's no big deal, just pop off the eraser and put in more lead. But as you use the pencil you are bound to make mistakes, and when you make mistakes in pencil you erase them and when you erase them some of the eraser rubs off and when enough rubs off you can't remove the eraser from the end of the pencil unless you stab it with a pen or something to that effect. Also, once you get the eraser off you need to put it back on to keep the lead in the pencil. It's a vicious cycle.

So by using a third party eraser, you avoid that whole surgical eraser removal thing. You leave the eraser in the end of the pencil (relatively) intact and use your big eraser instead. This prolongs the life of both regular and mechanical pencils.

Additionally, the erasers at the ends of pencils, whether they be mechanical or traditional pencils, are often shit. An eraser that simply smudges the mistakes can lead to more mistakes as you misinterpret your own writing. It's a vicious cycle. Big erasers are usually better quality and they actually erase. While it can be hard to erase small areas while leaving surrounding areas unaffected with a large eraser, you can use the pencil's end eraser for this purpose if you'd like or just get good at erasing with the big eraser. You can also just erase and rewrite the splash erased information.