Markers.

So it's back to school time, even if, like me, you live in a place where public schools won't reopen until after Labor Day. After all, college students have to get shipped off. Kids have to load up with the stuff the school says they will need. And remember, Labor Day is really early this year -- September 2. That means very little September will be available here in New York for kids to enjoy school-free. Then there will be pencils. There will be books. And yes indeed, there will be teacher's dirty looks. 

I used to love going with my mom to get school supplies, even though I dreaded the start of school. But I swear, everyone has gotten more grumpy since Dri Mark stopped selling these. 

I was an inveterate doodler in school -- actually, still am -- and when I saw that picture I got to wondering what happened to Dri Mark since my school days. The company is still around, and while they don't sell colored markers on the store shelves anymore, they do custom orders for these kinds of supplies. But that's not where they get the bulk of their money. If you don't know what Dri Mark makes now, you probably wouldn't guess. 

So I'll just tell you. In 1991, "Dri Mark became the original patent holder and only domestic manufacturer of the iconic Counterfeit Detector Pen. Over the next 25 years, the Detector Pen rose to be the highest-selling, and most success­ful counterfeit detection product in the industry." That's right -- most of the Long Island, New York-based company's dough comes from markers and other products that detect and expose counterfeit money. I would not have expected that. 

When I was in college I had a job for a year that involved handling cash, but I never got one of those pens. I'm pretty sure they were around, because I knew a grumpy old man who ran a soda shop when I was in high school, and I'd occasionally see him run a pen over a large bill to make sure it was real. 

I was taught to check bills for their color, design elements, and most of all feel -- US money is printed on a blend of linen and cotton, not commercially available, and most counterfeiters would spend too much money faking the paper to make money with their fake money. The one counterfeit bill I did find, a C-note, was caught because it didn't feel like currency. Dri Mark's pen takes away the guesswork, leaving a mark if the note is not genuine currency paper. Now the company offers products that can verify modern cash in up to five ways, and even be used on foreign moolah.

I congratulate Dri Mark for staying afloat, manufacturing a desirable product in the United States -- in New York, no less! But I still miss your smiling marker man. His enthusiasm was a little bananas, but infectious all the same. That's a lot of doodling for $1.98.