Finishing School: Hands Off Our Pencils

"Mounting panic over the latest tariff reversals has created turmoil at home and at the office, and at the home office. Coffee, check; bananas, check. Bad news for cashews and Irish whiskey, not to mention pasta and olive oil. And what about the fine print? Will tariffs on "manufacturing inputs" drive up the price of pencils? The Blackwing 602, my favorite, is manufactured in California from native incense cedar, but its core consists of a proprietary blend of graphite imported from Japan."

"In addition to four twelve-packs of fresh Ticonderoga No. 1s and a cigar box of cheap, broken No. 2s rescued from the gutter, I have scores of pencils in cups distributed throughout the house-souvenirs of Melville's Arrowhead and the T.W.A. Hotel at J.F.K., gifts from South Korea, even two complimentary pencils from a stateroom on the Queen Mary 2, sharpened to perfection by Cunard himself."

"I placed an order online, but it was cancelled; the item was "out of stock." Not a good sign. I made a special trip to a Japanese bookstore in midtown, usually a reliable source, with a whole lower floor dedicated to all things stationery: pens, pencils, sharpeners, erasers in the shape of sushi. An employee in an apron was down on her hands and knees, restocking the felt-tip pens from a drawer beneath the display. "Do you have any Blackwings?" I asked. "Sold out," she said."

Mounting panic over tariff reversals created turmoil at home, at the office, and at the home office, affecting coffee, bananas, cashews, Irish whiskey, pasta, and olive oil. Concern arose over tariffs on "manufacturing inputs" and whether they would raise pencil prices, because the Blackwing 602 has a California cedar casing but a graphite core imported from Japan. Inventory revealed many pencils scattered around the house but only six Blackwings. An online order was canceled as out of stock. A trip to a Japanese bookstore found Blackwings sold out, and a clerk confirmed the shortage while restocking other supplies.

Read at The New Yorker