CALGARY, Alberta – The head of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Geologists has filed a complaint in the consumer court against one of the world’s largest crayon manufacturers over a washable product that he claims, “destroyed countless hours of geological work.”
The stationery that allegedly threw person-years of work down the drain is manufactured by the Krayola Corporation under the brand name Wash and Forget. The company, established in 1946, also manufactures such iconic brands as the We Got You Darkies skin colour line and Redact Me Not.
“Washable crayons and markers are not good for true science. Why? Because the maps that we spend weeks and months putting together just wash away. I am suing because the labeling on the washable crayons was not clear. Putting the words ‘Wash-a-Way Crayons’ on the package is downright misleading,” Linden Mayhayter, P.Geo., CAPG president
According to court documents filed by Mr. Mayhayter (who represents petroleum geologists across Canada), there is a long list of incidents where the Wash-a-Way crayons are directly responsible for lost work. He and his group is seeking $375 billion for lost income and punitive damages. The following is an excerpt from the filing that cites some of the incidents.
- Roy Delienals of Airdrie, Alberta-based Guzzallit Exploration saw more than 5 months of work disappear when his plant leaked on his desk and washed away all of his zones.
- Brown Beaver Resource’s Harvey Tightring P.Geo., who gets technical inspiration in the shower by drawing his maps on waterproof paper to use as shower curtains, lost over 2 years of work after switching to the new crayons. He blames and engineer who might have switched out his regular crayons.
“Hey, if engineers want to use washable pencil crayons, they can fill their boots with them because pretty much everything that they write down is wrong anyways,” said geologist Harvey Tightring.
2P News reached out to the Krayola Corporation for comment on the court proceedings. Gizzabelle Gurgler, the company’s spokesperson, replied by saying, “hahahaha hahaha hahahaha… hahahaha… hahahahahaha… (oh, this is gold)… HAHAHAH AHAHAHAH BWAAHAHA BWAHAH!!”
Mr. Mayhayter did mention in his statement of claim that he and his group are willing to drop the case if Krayola returns to making permanent pencil crayons that do not erase, as long as they are made with coloured lead like back in the 1960s. They claim that this will prevent their maps from being washed away. When asked about the toxicity of the lead in the pencil crayons, he simply stated that, “Using lead? Oh, haha, that’s fine. It is the how Darwin intended us to weed out the non-geologists.”
