Pen Propriety

AKIE BERMISS: I am a keeper of pens.  You may take from me all my other writing utensils.  Pencils — while I dig the scratchiness, I can do without them.  Markers — it feels good to make big bold statements with a solid marker, but perhaps its too great a gesture.  Crayons — I’ll miss the rainy-day coloring book activities, but I’ll survive.  When it comes to real ink, however, I must draw the line.  You have my last pen over my dead body.  A failed warrior will fall on his sword and I, should it come to that, would fall on my pen.  I would rather it break and bleed on me ruining my clothes than for you to take it from me.

Don’t get me wrong, though.  I’m a generous guy.  I like to loan people pens.  Anytime some one is looking even a little bit confused, patting their pockets, and looking from side to side.  I say, “Need a pen?” Already I am reaching for one of my pockets to remove those little wonders of modern science (do you know that pens, as we know them today, have only been around a couple hundred years at the most?!)  I always ask for it back.  And I’m not below following someone who has borrowed my pen around a room (discreetly!) too ensure that they don’t pocket my pen and walk off with it.  I’ve lost too many excellent pens that way.

And, when it comes to losing pens, I’ve learned my lessons the hard way. I carry NO LESS than three pens on me on any given day.  I keep spare pen collections in my various book bags and shoulder bags, in my car, in various rooms of my house.  I own three keyboards that I use regularly.  Each has a pen stashed somewhere in its carrying case.  I have journals, notebooks, day planners, and musical composition sketch-books.  Each book — has its own pen!  Yes, and when I get up in the morning I strap pens to my body like they were guns in the Matrix.  One in my breast pocket, two in my left pants pocket, one in the right — what I wouldn’t give for some hidden pen holsters!  A couple for my calves, maybe for an emergency fountain pen strapped to my back.  There are days I keep one behind my ear, if I don’t have a pencil handy.  I am a keeper of pens.

Some people, when they leave a place like a bar or restaurant or movie theater, they check their pockets for maybe: keys, phone, wallet.  Well and good, I say.  But why stop there?  I always do a discrete pen-check.  If I can’t find one, I go back.  Pens are valuable commodities.  If the world does suddenly come to a grinding halt and everything devolves into chaos — I’ll be the guy who had a couple of pens on him so that future aliens can know what happened.

And when I’m feeling down or depressed or too stressed out — I go to a stationary store and I buy me some pens.  I always get a couple roller-ball pens, and maybe a pack of ball-points (mainly to loan out to people when they ask), and then I’ll get a few new-fangled contraptions.  Just to see if they’re any good.  I get very excited about new pen technologies.  Clicker-pens with multiple color options.  Or pens that have two different nibs.  A pen with a pencil add-on.  How fine can a “micro-fine tip” be?  How solid is the line?  Will it make my weird script “f” look cool or goofy?  Will it write well with my style?  Is it good for notating music?!  The possibilities are really endless.

A good pen is a good friend, dear reader.  And I have many good friends.

JILLIAN LOVEJOY LOWERY:  The entire human population of the Earth can be divided into two categories:  the people who carry pens and the ones who do not.  Conscientious pen-carriers are always made to surrender their writing utensils to ill-prepared brutes, many of whom even end up pocketing the pen.  This is an outrage.  Non-pen-carriers deserve to be stabbed in the eye with my purple flair tip.

I am a pen carrier.  My spouse is not.  As you might imagine, this leads to a great deal of strife.  He is always borrowing my pen, which means I am subsequently without a pen.  This is grossly unfair, since I brought the damn thing in the first place.

Sometimes, when he asks to use my pen, I lie and tell him I don’t have one.  I look him square in the face, and I lie.  He knows I’m lying, too, and it makes him a little sad.  But there are days that I simply will not give in.  There are days that I need to take the power back.

My therapist tells me this is childish.  She even suggested that I start carrying multiple pens, to lessen my resentment.  That way, I’ll never be without one, even if he’s just mooched.  But I don’t like to reward bad behavior. No way.

Yeah, so….  Get your own damn pen.  I’m sick of this crap.

MOLLY SCHOEMANN: I do understand that it is important to be prepared, which is why I carry eye drops, lip gloss, Advil and a packet of tissues in my purse at all times. And sometimes a pen. Or not. When it comes to pens, I belong to the school of thought believes that the next pen is always just around the corner. Because you see, stray pens can often be found lying around on desks and counters, just waiting to be temporarily used by people like me. And when that is not the case, it is not that difficult to borrow a pen, even from a stranger—which is not true for most other things. Try asking a stranger on the bus if you can borrow their eye drops and you’ll see what I mean.

Another exciting thing about borrowing a pen from someone is that a small percentage of the time they tell you to just keep it. And that’s exciting! It means that you have another pen that you can take home and leave lying around somewhere.

You pen-lovers know who I am, and you despise me. I’m the person who thoughtlessly wanders away with one of your prized pens. I’m the pen-shunner who never has one of my own and is always asking to borrow yours and after I use it it never writes quite right again. To all those who treasure your pens, keep them safe and are loathe to lend them out to people like me, I am sorry. I didn’t take your fancy pen on purpose (usually). I’m sorry I rewarded your generosity with theft.

A very dear friend of mine insists on carrying at least five pens, two mechanical pencils, one highlighter and a sharpie marker or two with him at all times. Even in his own home, which is already stuffed to the brim with jars of pens on every surface, he keeps his pockets fully stocked with pens and ready to go. On occasion we’ll find ourselves sitting on the couch and watching TV, and I’ll notice that a half dozen or so pens are falling halfway out of his pants pocket, so I’ll take them out for him and put them on the coffee table for safekeeping. This genuinely disturbs him. “Please don’t do that,” he’ll say. “I might forget to put them back in my pocket when I get up, and then I won’t have a pen when I need one.” (Or ten!)

I feel that this terrifying scenario is unlikely to happen to him. I’m fairly sure he keeps several pens strapped to his ankles and one lone sharpie duct-taped to the middle of his back in the case of a dire emergency. For his sake, I almost hope that someday I am proven wrong—for example, that someday a small army of people will gather around him and express their desperate, burning need to scribble, highlight, and otherwise record data on paper, all at the same time! At that point his seemingly overflowing reserves of writing implements will be joyfully distributed among the grateful, pen-less masses while I look on, agog. I know how much he will enjoy it if my comeuppance ever comes in this way. Until that day comes, though, I will mock him mercilessly, even as I borrow his pens and wander off with them. The world is a cruel place.

Tags: borrowing, pens

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Arts & Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.