Paper clip retainers.

For some reason I just thought back to my 3rd grade days.  Particularly about a fad or trend or whatever the heck it was that involved paper clips.  We used to take paper clips and unbend them, you know, straighten them out.  Then we would make "retainers" for ourselves by shaping them into semi-circles.  We would carefully place it in our mouth resting it over the top of our upper teeth.  It was cool because you'd get to make sucking noises like you're producing ultra amounts of saliva like real retainer-wearing kids. The sharp edges might even cut the inside of your cheeks up just a little bit too, if you're lucky.  The pain was so worth it because it meant you were experiencing being cool. Bizarre.
First off, where were we getting all these paper clips?  I know they weren't on the required school supply list for the year.  I don't think any of us would have been brave enough to take them from that teacher's desk.  Heck no.  Maybe someone brought a bulk supply in from their dad's desk drawer at home or something.  Second, how did we get away with this for so long? And, lastly, WHY was this a cool thing to do?
One instance that I remember very vividly was when our class went over to another 3rd grade classroom.  Our two classes got together a lot because our teachers were buddies.  We would get together to do activities or read-alouds.  This day we were reading Stuart Little.  A big group of us from my class made our retainers and wore them over to the other class.  A lot of the kids in the other class had in their retainers in too.  We spent the majority of the read-aloud time adjusting our retainer so that it would stay in and making sucking noises due to the excess saliva accumulating in our mouths.  We also smiled a lot at each other to check out each others retainers.  The best retainers were made from the paper clips that were colored or had stripes.  Those were extra fancy.
Did you all ever do that?  Did you have a paper clip retainer fad?  Or was that just at my elementary school?
Talk about an extra slobbery fad. You'd pull your paper clip out and a string of spit would come with it.  Did that just make you throw up a little bit?  Me too.  I hate spit so much.  It's gross and it smells.
I guess deep down we all wanted to have braces and post-braces retainers.  Kids always want what they can't have or what they aren't quite ready for yet, so I guess it made sense. I'm so glad kids in school don't do this anymore.  At least not for now.  Trends always come full circle.  My future kid will probably be the one to restart it.  I can only hope.