Magenta Pencils

Wednesday, October 10, 2007 at 2:10 PM | Filed under

Want to see what I got in the mail today?



Two magenta colored pencils?? You're probably wondering why Crayola sent me these. It's an interesting story.

I decided that I needed some colored pencils to enhance the notes for my Light and Color class. We already have a huge bin of colored pencils downstairs, but I decided that a nice, crisp new box would be neater and easier to carry in my backpack. Mom was shopping at Target, and I realized that I could ask if she would buy me a box. Since magenta is such an important color (it's a subtractive primary, after all), I decided that I would look up on Crayola's website what the smallest box containing magenta is. I looked at the picture of the 12-pack, and it looked like it had a magenta in it, so I asked Mom to get that.

When she got home and presented the box of pencils to me, I was a little surprised to see no magenta in it! This wasn't really a huge calamity: I was able to find an okay magenta pencil in the bin downstairs, and I replaced the 12-pack's stupid redundant light brown pencil (why do you need light brown when you can just use brown and not push so hard?) with it, but I was a little disappointed that Crayola's website lied to me.

I mean, look at this picture. Wouldn't you assume that magenta (or at least, a similar enough color) is in there? See it? To the left of the orange, and to the right of the pink. Hey, wait, there's no pink in my box of pencils, either! My box contains red, red orange, orange, yellow, yellow green, green, sky blue, blue, violet, light brown, brown, and black. No pink, and no magenta!

Of course, I fired off a complaint letter to Crayola. I wish I had saved what I had written; it contained an explanation of the above story, as well as a suggestion that they correct the image on their website, and perhaps even post a list of what colors are in what boxes, so that it's obvious to people what they are buying.

Jo Ellen at Crayola e-mailed me a reply. She said she was while she isn't exactly sure where I was on the website (it was the products section, lady!), she was sorry to learn that I was misled. She also said, "As a complimentary gesture, I have placed in the mail to you two magenta colored pencils." So that's how I got these colored pencils. Anyone need a magenta pencil?

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