Scrambling for Scented Pencils: An Ode to Primary School 

This week I am feeling extra nostalgic. So, we’re going back to basics, it’s the 2010s, primary school, life is a bit simpler. This week I’m going get nostalgic and head back to a time where high school was an idea looming and rent wasn’t so shit.   

If your primary school experience was anything like mine, you may have experienced some of the following… Coming in swinging let's talk about the Scholastic Book Fair; the hottest ticket in town and possibly the only occasion many of us hit the library. I went absolutely feral for that week. Much like school assembly, you had no idea it was coming. I begged my parents for this spy starter kit from the booklet one year. I ran home every day hoping it had arrived and the day it did I lost my shit. Looking back, it was just a crappy pair of not so discreet recording glasses, plastic, neon green and loud, but I was well chuffed.  

In a similar vein, do you remember being shunned from the class if you didn’t get your hands on those scented Smiggle erasers? They were absolutely useless at their one job (at the time, I cannot speak on their functionality at present) but regular erasers were out and Smiggle was all the rage. I scraped together my pocket money to get that motorised electric eraser, which actually worked pretty well despite the obnoxious sound and the whole batteries not includedtm. I’m not sure why we all wanted our stationery to smell like fruit salad, but those scented pencils were far more useless than any of the erasers. If you ever dared to sharpen them, the scented wrap would peel off. Tragic but let’s face it: pencil cases never smelt better. 

If you went to primary school in the early 2010s, you may recall those fateful days – usually at the end of term – where you got to watch movies in class. Projector and weird electric whiteboard craze wouldn’t cut it. No, you had to wheel in the big guns; the T.V that was so chunky it needed its own cart and three 10-year-olds to bring it into the classroom. Those were the days.  

Ask anyone if I love a lolly scramble and you’ll realise I take no prisoners on that front. You had to be ruthless back in the day, you wouldn’t survive otherwise. ‘Dog eat dog’ and all that. You had no friends in a lolly scramble, only allies and enemies. It was what it was. Fruit bursts were the currency but the thing is, they hit you like a truck if you’re at point blank range. Brutal but worth it. One year the lolly scramble was botched when the lollies were unwrapped. You had to catch those bad boys before they made contact with the ground. The five second rule wasn’t going to save you.  

You knew it was going to be a good day when it rained. Inside lunch? Absolutely. Remember Papa’s Freezeria? Now that was a GAME, I spent many a rainy lunch time hunched over the crappy school PCs making frozen yogurts. Was it frozen yogurt? No one cared, it was fun and we were so cool. Club Penguin and Moshi Monsters were huge, too. I can’t say I was that big a fan of Poptropica but I love to customise a character so at least that was cool. Or how about Cool Maths Games? I’m sure many of us back in the day stepped up the drama and managed to convince the teachers that it was educational. I witnessed Meryl Streep respect for acting on those days.  

Math games have loomed in my brain for so long. I’m not sure what those little counters were for, but I can still picture them vividly. And those little plastic blocks, no clue still, but the primary colours have never looked so vivid.  

Outside of school, I played with the iconic Bratz dolls, Lego, and if I was lucky my dad brought out the Scalextric track. I raced Ferrari but had no concept of Formula 1 back then, only that red was my favourite colour. Polly Pocket was a big thing, not really for me, but those rubbery shoes did look tasty. As a disclaimer, I deny consuming any of my doll’s accessories, but I can’t say I didn’t want to. Moving on, Moshi monsters and the collectable Moshlings were HUGE amongst my friends. Each week I’d get a new mystery pack with my pocket money and spend upwards of thirty minutes trying to get a pack I didn’t already have. Double ups became a year group stock exchange. Same thing for the New World minis. It was rat race and I wanted a monopoly. Even the teachers got involved. Exchanging mini milks for the can of marmite was a hard sell. 

On those after-schools you needed to chill, hard work on Primary school wall street was tough. So T.V may have been the go, I was partial to Cartoon Network back in the day. I was and let’s face it, still am obsessed with Scooby Doo. I loved that show so much that prior to the aforementioned Moshling craze I would spend my pocket money on Scooby Doo DVDs from the Warehouse. Over time I did build up a pretty big collection, unfortunately now I don’t have a DVD player. Still, when cartoons were on at 6am I’d be up to watch them one centimetre from my face. These days you wouldn’t catch me dead waking up before the sun. It was a simpler time of course, no work, no rent, no rapidly growing student loan. That’s nostalgia for ya’, all those bittersweet memories. If it’s any condolence, you can still watch those nostalgic shows or play with those dolls today, who’s stopping you? Have a lolly scramble with your friends, go nuts.  

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Nostalgia-bait “What if we made a whole-ass movie explaining how Han Solo got his windshield dice???”