In the second year of my primary school, we were all given standard edition chunky pencils, which came in red, yellow, green or blue.

Although the teacher thought she was assigning pencils at random, little did she know that she was actually defining our social status for the rest of the term.

Red, red, wet the bed
Blue, blue, smells of poo
Green, green, parasheen (a totally made up word which sounded like it should mean something cool)
Yellow was casually skirted around cos no-one could think of anything that rhymed with it.

The special 'parasheen' status was a blessing, but the glory could be short lived. An owner of a green pencil could be given a red or blue pencil in the next school term, bringing them back down to earth to join the common folk.

Those on the bottom of the social pile were known to try and colour their pencils in with felt tips, but this only resulted in green palms and being called David Bellamy.