Bouquet of sharpened pencils

Oh, the joys of fall! While it would be easier to get into the mood if the weather were a little more crisp, we spent the better part of the day shopping for school supplies. It took over two hours and three stores (plus a grocery store for dinner supplies)... and we are only shopping for preschool!!!
School supply shopping always makes me think of that scene in "You've Got Mail" when they talk about how great fall is and bouquets of sharpened pencils - I'm not sure of the exact quote. Ironically, the hardest thing for us to find today were the pencils... of course, they weren't normal yellow #2 pencils, but Jimmy's list included "2 Kindergarten Pencils (flat)"... WHAT??? I never realized that a degree in early childhood education was a pre-req for raising kids past the age of 3. I do pretty well when I have to decide which diaper creme or sunscreen will do the best job while using the least amount of chemicals on my kids' skin, but I had no idea what a Kindergarten Pencil (flat) was until today. Even now, I wonder if it's a typo, and it was supposed to say "Kindergarten Pencils (fat)". Doesn't that make more sense? Anyway, the third store of the day was a teacher supply store - it's called Education Station and it's the type of store that is stocked with alphabet posters and Melissa and Doug toys. I asked the knowledgable former teachers at the counter and they knew exactly what I was looking for. But there was still one more choice to make - eraser or no eraser? Now, to a layperson Mommy, it seems logical that you would want an eraser close by (i.e. on the end of your writing utencil), but now that I've googled the "Finger fitter pencil", I see that no eraser is recommended to keep kids from being preoccupated with correcting their mistakes. So for all my effort, I still may have fallen a bit short. Ah well, Jimmy doesn't start preschool for another 2 weeks, so I have time to exchange them.