Everything I need to know about Tombow I learned from Elle Woods!

First, the back story.

Y'all know I'll be 60 in December and that over my years of employment I've worked in an office or two, as well as a school or two. Opportunities abounded and still abound for me to make errors and/or mistakes on the typed or printed page.

Gone are the days of starting over, like I had to do in Mrs. Anthony's lunch period sophomore typing class at Provine High School in Jackson, Miss. One assignment, to type an invitation to our parents for Back-to-School-Night--my first effort began "Dear Mama and Faffy." I still remember vividly choking back laughter, and it happened in the fall of 1963! Mrs. Anthony was not amused. But she is the same woman who told us on the first day of school that she'd better not see any of us taking a bite out of our roll at lunch without having first broken it into two pieces. Self-assured teen that I was, I thought I'd heard it all.

From the days of round typewriter erasers equipped with a brush to whisk off tell-tale bits of rubber, to those little white rectangles of chalky-coated paper you placed between the ball on the IBM Selectric and the typing paper to cover up the offending letter, to the little white bottle labeled Liquid Paper with the brush that swelled up and dried once air hit it as you dabbed the paper, to the Presto Jumbo Correction Pen which is bright blue with a clear cap to protect the tip that either releases a stingy amount of correction fluid or a veritable flood compared to the mistake that needs correcting, I've used them all. Conscientious worker that I am, I thought I'd seen them all.

That is, until last summer when I met Tombow.

Sounds sort of like a Southern, good ol' boy, name. Tom Beau Somebody. You're thinking it might be Tom Bow, as in take a bow? I don't think so. When you consider how handy a good ol' boy can be, Tom Beau is your only choice.

Not that it was love at first sight. In fact, it was more like, "Huh? You gotta be kidding! You hold this how? And do what to get it lifted up off the paper?" A gracious and patient co-worker talked me through my initial efforts, then left me on my own.

A few days and/or mistakes later, as I carefully drew the tip of the applicator across the page, wondering if I'd cover up way more than I meant to as I tried to come to the end of the error, I heard her voice: " ... then you just snap it up."

Snap? Oh-h-h-h, snap. Visions of Elle Woods and friends, performing the "Bend and Snap" filled into my head. Roll-l-l. Snap! Roll-l-l. Snap! Practice makes perfect! Well, I don't suppose the UPS man saw it that way when Paulette Bonafonté decked him. I promise, I don't use my Tombow any where near any delivery persons.

I know. Now you've heard it all.