My Pen Died Yesterday

My pen died yesterday afternoon after several months of faithful service. It was a gift from someone who frequents my job and she dropped off a breast cancer awareness goody bag of sorts for everyone in my office. I wasn’t in when she did the drop off (as it was either October or November and I attended major funerals in both of those months) but I was immediately smitten with this pink pen with Mon General Hospital emblazoned on it (the same hospital where Aaliyah was born almost 2 years ago).

Even as a kid, I always was fascinated with writing utensils, even when it came to coloring, as I always opted for colored pencils versus any other coloring instruments. Does anyone else have a favorite pencil brand (Dixon Ticonderoga. Not Dixon brand. If there’s not a fort name following it, forget about it)? Does anyone else have a disdain towards mechanical pencils (or does anyone remember the two sizes of lead you needed for them)? I prefer a black Bic Cristal ballpoint pen but I’ve become partial to a good blue Bic Round Stic (shut up) pen over the last few years. My love of red likes to have a red Bic Round Stic (shut up) on tap too even though I rarely get to use it.

I’m not a big fan of novelty pens because they never seem to work. Those roller ball pens that claim your pen will write as smooth as ever run out after a week. Most pens with a button tend to break before you’ve put a dent in the ink, even if you’re not an incessant clicker (which I’m not). And I hate it when a pen is one color but it only writes in blue or black ink. Make the ink the color the pen is, that’s all I ask.

There wasn’t anything special about this pen. It didn’t have comfort grips and it didn’t change colors from the heat of my hand. It just wrote black ink consistently for either 5 or 6 months. I took it apart today and I’m not sure why. Once you furiously scribbled with it several times, you know it’s gone dry. But you think that taking it apart will magically refill it. Of course that never works and then you’re trying to put your beloved pen back together. Thankfully, I’ve been putting pens back together for years, so the picture above is after disassembling and reassembling.

The major question is what pen will I move on to next? Anna gave me a black pen that our mortgage department uses that works pretty well. It’ll be an adjustment to go back to a bigger sized pen though. Mary gave me a set of Raiders pens a couple Christmases ago but they don’t write very well, so they’re around for sentimental value. I try not to use our regular business pens, optioning instead for them to be used by anyone who comes in my office. Right now, I’ve went back to the trusty old blue pen but I’ll probably try the black pen tomorrow.

As for my pink pen? It’s sitting in my cup holder, destined to collect dust for who knows how long. Probably for the rest of my time at this job. Maybe someday I’ll look at it and forget about why I kept it. Maybe I’ll make it a point to hang onto it for years and years, so much so that I’ll be old and senile yelling about, “My pink pen!” Could my pink pen become my version of Rosebud? Highly doubtful but that’s only because I can think of many other things more important to me in life than this pink pen. But it was good soldier… and good soldier deserves to be honored.

However, for anyone wondering what it means when I yell, “EAGLE!” in my old age, just go watch Scrubs.

2 Replies to “My Pen Died Yesterday”

  1. “There wasn’t anything special about this pen. It didn’t have comfort grips and it didn’t change colors from the heat of my hand. It just wrote black ink consistently for either 5 or 6 months.”It's amazing the things we become attached to and miss when they're gone. Great writing here, Kelen.

  2. Thanks Mark. I haven't gotten to write as much as I would like lately, so I'm glad this came across well!

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