gomu erasers. Cute and annoying.

In my insane quest for glow in the dark stuff, I came across these little fellows in a local department store.  Having a look at the package I spied a bit of jibber-jabber about glow in the dark erasers.  Now having a bit of a thing for stationery, and combining that with my thing for glow in the dark, how could I resist?

 

Aarh, but all is not well  For there be a catch.

 

 

Gomus are erasers on the shape of, stuff.  That isn’t normally and eraser shape. I.E square.  It comes from the Japanese word “ゴム” (‘Go mu’) which is what they call erasers.  These ‘gomu’ by Moose toys come in a variety of shapes and sizes.  I got a gorilla one.

This here is the package, as you can see, there is a ‘secret compartment’ section down the bottom with rare gomu hiding in them.  In my naivety, I assumed that the glowing gomu would be in the hidden section.  Well, it turns out it isn’t!!

 

More on that later, for now let’s concentrate on the ones that don’t glow.

 

First off, the reason I chose this pack, the gorilla.

 

It’s obscenely cute and if you have a closer look at the pictures below, rather well detailed.  He has little hairy feet details and a simple but effective face going on.  All the pieces are eraser bits and the arms can come off, but don’t move.  On the back of each, or somewhere is the ‘g’ for gomu.

 

 

I like this gorilla.  It’s an urban gorilla (no, not guerrilla).

 

Aaaw isn’t that cute? 

 

Ok, next on the list is the erm, well less exciting by far, domino.  Right.  Much more along the lines of your average eraser, it’s rectangular and consists of two bits.  Not very exciting.

 

 

And now to the amazing ‘rare’ gomu in the hidden compartment!!

 

Hidden away is this little guy.  Along with a checklist, I unwrapped him, awaiting some amazing glow awesomeness!!

 

 

WOW! Lookit that peacock!!    the hair piece, the sculpting on his feet.  Lovely.

 

 

 

I was blown away, such an amazing design for an eraser.  How does it look when glowing I thought, so I ran off to the darkest room of the house (naturally the toilet), shut the door and awaited the glow. 

 

Nothing.

 

Hmm, maybe I should charge him up a bit.  ‘Flick’ - the toilet is lit, ‘stretch’ – Peacock is next to the light.  Charging my eraser, charging my eraser.  After a minute. ‘Flick’ – Back in darkness.

 

Still nothing.

 

??

 

??

 

Nuts, what’s going on?  A little upset, I proceed to take it outside in the thought artificial light didn’t quite juice it up.  here are the resulting photos.

 

I call this series, “Gomu in the Mist”

 

Cute, and rather fun as well.  Been a while since I took a toy outside…  Not too shabby  considering how they are just meant to wipe out carbon marks on paper.  The only bummer was the headpiece on the peacock has a tendency to drop off really easily as it isn’t glued on.

 

So with the peacock sufficiently charged with sunlight power, back to the darkened toilet.

 

*look*

 

 

 

*peer*

 

 

 

*squint*

 

 

 

Still nothing.

 

 

 

 

Hmm, I gave up at this point.  Dejected and disappointed I went off for a cup of tea and promptly forgot about the whole thing.

 

Days later, whilst perusing the checklist, I worked out the key, indicating which ones were glow in the dark!  AAAA HAAAAA! Now I have it!! I thought.  So I stashed the catalogue in my wallet so that I could go hunting whenever I happened to pass by a store selling the gomu.

 

However, after at least three stores and thoroughly hunting through their ENTIRE stock, I came away empty handed.  I couldn’t even find ones that I didn’t want (like a domino) that glowed.  WHAT THE HELL?

 

I was most disappointed indeed.  I have so far given up my quest for a glowing eraser, as it really shouldn’t be THIS much effort to get one.

 

I’d still like one though, but now I even doubt their existence.  Knowing Australia’s bad toy efforts, it wouldn’t surprise me if the glow erasers never even made it here. 

 

Sad Panda.