One of the most satisfying parts of my day is when I decide and formulate what I’m going to write about for my daily blog post.  I know a lot of professional bloggers have actual schedules that dictate their posts from day to day.  Their posts contain beautiful photos and clean layouts that allow you to peruse their writings in a very esthetically pleasing online environment.  Since I am not a professional blogger and a bit unorganized at times, I typically go until mid-afternoon with no real idea of what to write about.

I think the closet cleaning from yesterday was partly done just so I had something to write about, but I should have taken the time to actually look at the post after I published it because the writing and pictures are all screwed up.  Oh well – again, not a professional blogger.

I couldn’t think of what had me screaming “WTF?!” lately.  I saw a snail funeral this morning.  For real.  The snails were all over the sidewalk after the rain and there was a squished one and a bunch of little ones that were surrounding it.  It kind of made me sad and I was a little mad that someone stepped on the dead snail.  Milliseconds after that thought entered my mind Rory had his foot raised, ready to squish all the snail grievers.  I guess I could say Rory was the subject of a “WTF?” moment again, but really, he is a 3 year old little boy – he could be the subject every week.

And then I read about this guy.

This is David Rees.  He is the owner of Artisan Pencil Sharpening and author of “How To Sharpen Pencils”.  Mr. Rees will sharpen your pencil, send the pencil, along with it’s shavings and certificate of authenticity to you for a *ahem* reasonable price of $15.  According to the article I read on the Today Show website, he has an order for 500 pencils.  That’s $7,500 for those of you that don’t know the new math.

At first I didn’t think this was all that crazy.  I was imagining that for $15 you received a really nice pencil, much like the pretty pens people give as gifts.  Then I discovered that not only do most people send in their own pencil to be sharpened, but if you elect to have David send one of his pencils, it appears that it is a standard No. 2 pencil.

I went from thinking that this could be a nice gift to, this guy is a genius!  Clearly this is not a necessary service, but I think we have all had a pencil that didn’t get sharpened well.  It could be that the graphite isn’t completely exposed – there’s that one side that has a translucent sheath of wood still attached so it scrapes against the paper.  Or the sharpener that takes off too much wood and the lead breaks further down into the shaft of the pencil so you end up resharpening half of your pencil away just to get to new lead.  Irritating?  Yes.  Worthy of spending $15 to ensure proper sharpening?  Probably not.

Mr. Rees says he reveals all of his secrets in his new book so your half-assed sharpening methods can be a thing of the past.  All you need to do is read his 224 page book.  Yes, 224 pages on the art of sharpening a pencil.  Again – genius.  Some will buy the book purely for the novelty of it.  And others will send in their pencil to be sharpened just to show that in these difficult economic times they have $15 to piss away.

I congratulate and wish David Rees luck on his business venture.  He claims that it isn’t a joke and I believe him to some extent.  I do believe he will take the time to sharpen your pencil and that it’s probably the best point ever, but I also hope that he smiles each time he receives an order.

So today, I give my WTF Wednesday award not to Mr. Rees, but to the 500 people who have requested to have their pencils professionally sharpened.

Check out my new award image!