The Great Eraser Incident

Erasers. What do you do when errors mar your paper and you have no hope of correcting them? TA TA RA TA! ERASER TO THE RESCUE. Sometimes they are also called rubbers. You know I used to call them rubbers once upon a time but everytime I did, people would give me that freaky smile with that mad look in their eyes which I couldn’t understand but I solved the mystery only last year and now I think it would be more prudent to call it eraser
So it’s been quite sometime since The Great Realization. He sat all the way there in No Man’s Land and I found myself wishing one day that he were closer. And the very next day he packed his bags and moved into the bench next to me. Talk about wishful thinking. Cool!
One particularly uneventful day, my eraser seemed hellbent on getting way from the adhesive force that bound it to the desk and eloping with gravity. My hips were getting some exercise from all that bending. A dismembered voice behind me said “Oh God! You’re just doing that so that he would pick it up!”
Now I swear (cross my heart and hope to die) that I wasn’t even thinking about some thing like this until the idea was thrown at me. So the next time the eraser fell………….
Damn! Missed it!
I retrieved my eraser. A few seconds later it fell down again and this time, it was right near his foot.
Just ask him to pick it up, I told myself. No big deal. It doesn’t mean anything. Ask him now……..
Throughout the class, I tried to muster my courage. Ok, maybe break time.
Break Time………….
Not immediately!!!! Maybe I should wait for some time.
I came back into class, resolved that I would ask him to pick up that eraser but I couldn’t do it. You know why? THERE WAS NO ERASER ON THE GROUND!!!! Why that thieving, conniving little magpie! He picked up my eraser after all and I didn’t even get to ask him! Where is my eraser? I WANT MY ERASER!!!!
[A friend of mine after the narration of this incident “Oh that’s so like me, picking up stray erasers and using them”]
Teasing voices in the background, “Now you’ll never get it back! Serves you right!” and exit the class.
I saw him coming back. Ok, its now or never….
“Hey, have you seen an eraser lying around here anywhere?”
“Yeah, I put it here”, lifting the desk of the bench in front of him
“Thanks!”
The Next Day…………………
“Where did you get that eraser from?”
“I asked him for it. That’s all”
And I never let anybody touch that eraser again……………………………….