The Pencil Test

Checking the time stamp, it is now around 12:30am on a Friday night and boy have times changed for me in the past 5 months. Unfortunately, my job is what has me awake at this hour rather than a binge drinking spree at some local bar. As so many readers of this blog know, Glory Days must be looking at their books each month scratching their heads in amazement as to where some of their marketshare has gone. I digress. Since pregnancy and my company have me wide awake, I have decided to blog now rather than later....Perhaps to get my mind on happier and more exiting topics. So Here goes.... THE PENCIL TEST IS A MYSTERY TO MOST, AS IT WAS TO ME JUST 2 SHORT DAYS AGO; however this test is no mystery to half of my family. My brother Philip has been performing this test for years. For those that read the previous blog and have heard of that old wives tale regarding the ring test, this one is very similar however the track record seems to be much better, And the story to go with it is equally as entertaining. Again, I find myself in familiar waters as of late trying to take a bad situation and find the good in it. As many of you know, my father has spent another week in the hospital however has made a wonderful turn for the better and is hopefully getting out of the hospital soon. In an effort to pass the time and think on happier thoughts, my brother Philip was much obliged to perform his "voo doo" on me to determine the baby's gender which takes me to to the title of this post. His instructions are to find a needle, a thread, and a #2 Pencil. Ladies and gentlemen, it is Thursday afternoon and we are in a hospital room, so just where am I supposed to find a needle and thread, let alone a #2 pencil which I am pretty sure I haven't seen since 5th grade. I head to the pharmacy in the adjacent medical building, and low and behold, a traveling sewing kit for $1.98. When I inform the nice lady behind the counter what exactly I am doing on this scavenger hunt, she is much obliged to give me one of her 3 #2 Pencils that are hanging out together in a cup on the counter. She even sharpened it for me...So there are still nice people in the world, and customer service isn't completely gone, at least it wasn't that day. ON TO THE TEST. We thread the needle, stick it into the eraser of the pencil, and Philip proceeds to dangle it over me....not over the baby, but over my left wrist. All the while, he explains what will happen with the pencil. For lack of space and fear I am losing some of you, I will have to demonstrate the details in person sometime but everything he said would happen Did Happen. He explained that he would not only be able to determine the gender of this baby, but also how many we would have and what their genders would be as well. He was not moving his hand, it was perfectly still, but that pencil started to spin. It then almost immediately started to travel up and down my arm (wrist pointed up) It then started to spin again and almost immediately switched directions and started to travel left to right across my wrist...against the grain so to speak. Then without hesitation, it completely stopped. As Philip explained it, this baby is a boy! And after the boy, in a year or two we will be having a girl (going against the grain....Ha Ha) and then we will be done; hence why the pencil stopped. I was shocked and amazed as was my mother who was watching. We immediately called Jeff to tell him that according to the Pencil test, we were having a little baseball player after all. It was his birthday on Thursday so good news like that couldn't wait :-) What is the reliability? To his knowledge he has never been wrong. So, I either de-bunk every other test out there or Philip's winning streak is over.