Monday of Munsch - Purple, Green, and Yellow

I've always considered my brain to be more wired towards the arts rather than the sciences.  Let's face it, my grades in art classes were always much better than in any biology, chemistry, zoology, or any class ending in -ogy.  The only thing I liked about chemistry class was the idea of certain chemicals blending together to make awesome colours.  Of course, there was always the risk of getting blown up, but at least you get to see the most perfect shade of green before that happened.

I can remember all the way back to when I was a kid, I really didn't have much interest in playing with toys.  Oh, sure, I played with my Tonka trucks outside happily.  I built several hundred things with my Legos.  My imagination went into overdrive with any and all Fisher-Price toys.  And anytime I played the board game Life, I always had the best life out of anyone I played...until I came to the sobering conclusion that my life in Life was more exciting than the life I was currently living.

And yet nothing would give me greater joy than going down to the store, buying a 500 pack of lined paper, and a package of new markers.

Seriously, I would have rather played with art supplies than with toys.  Even today, I still feel this way, and have what seems like a storeroom filled with crayons, coloured pencils, acrylic paint, and markers - in both permanent and washable!  And, occasionally when I was a child I would get so into drawing pictures or writing stories with my markers that I would inevitably get marker streaks of purple, green, and yellow all over my hands, arms, legs, and maybe even my face at time or two!

Say, purple, green, and yellow...that reminds me of another Robert Munsch story.  And since every Monday in September is Munsch Mondays, I think this would be a great opportunity to feature the book Purple, Green, and Yellow!

Now, the story itself is one that has all the elements of a great Robert Munsch story.  It's got a good lesson to learn, it's got an inquisitive protagonist, and it's got lots and lots of humour.

The story is about a little girl named Brigid who loves markers of all kinds.  She loves markers that are scented, markers that are magic, markers that are brightly coloured, and markers that are permanent.  But Brigid's problem is that any time she finds a marker that she likes, they always run out or fade away, and that is just not acceptable to her.

As most of us know, most markers are washable, meaning that they can wash off underneath a running faucet and a little bit of soap.  They can also come out of clothing via washer and dryer.  But Brigid wants a marker that will NEVER come off.  No matter how much soap one uses, no matter how long one spends in the shower, and no matter what laundry detergent one decides to use.

She manages to find a set of markers deemed "Super-indelible-never-come-off-'til-you're-dead-and-maybe-even-later" markers that are guaranteed never to come off.  And considering that every marker she has used prior to this always got scrubbed off by her mother, Brigid decides to put this to the test by covering her whole body with colourful marker designs.  And when her mother orders her to wash off all the colour, she inadvertently washes off EVERYTHING to the point where she becomes invisible!

Now, I have to say that I have never gotten any marker like that...but truth be told, I completely understand Brigid's pain.  Do you have any idea how long it took me to go back to school shopping when I was a kid?  Hours.  And the reason why it took hours was because I wanted to get supplies that no other kid in the class had.

Now, granted, this was easy in elementary school.  In third grade, I was the only kid who didn't have anything New Kids on the Block related. 

But trying to find the perfect supplies was almost like a challenge.  And what was worse was that I had to do it on a limited budget.  After all, I grew up in a working class family and had to get the most bang for my buck.

I think when it came down to finding the perfect markers though, while Crayola and Laurentien were both excellent brands, my favourite had to be the Mr. Sketch ones.  Not only because they had awesome scents for eleven of the twelve (I still hate the licorice scented one all these years later), but because those markers last forever!  I bought a package of them like twenty years ago, and two of the colours still write perfectly twenty years later!

Of course, those two colours were yellow and pink, which were the two colours I used the least...but still, they last a long time!

I'm sure Brigid would have approved!