They are bright, colorful, and an essential part of our collective childhood. We all recognize their nostalgic waxy smell right away and laugh at their cheerful and wacky color names. Of course, I'm talking about crayons.

I'm partial to the Crayola brand myself, as I couldn't get enough of them as a kid. I've written at length about my obsession with them in my blog. They captivate me and bring back so many happy childhood memories, back before things got so very complicated. Back before I had to "adult" and get a job.

I have a few sets already in my possession right now, and yet, I just purchased another set. This set:



It has a whopping 152 different colors, with no repeats. There's the basic library of 120 different colors (some with zany names like Razzmatazz or Macaroni and Cheese), and then 16 metallic and 16 glitter colors as well. It also comes with a sharpener and a caddy to carry everything.

Maybe I'm getting entirely too excited over something so simple and so utterly infantile as a box of crayons, but dammit, I need something to be excited about these days.

I've even heard that these little nostalgic waxy sticks of varying pigments can also help to lift depression, if only for a few precious minutes. Do you believe this to be true? Can it really be so? What do you think? Can these seemingly simple creations really have such power as to awaken us from the depths of our most severe depressive episodes?