I don’t remember the last time that I actually bought a pen before yesterday. Just like your weird friends, they just seem to always be there. To tell you the truth, I really don’t know where I get them, but upon closer inspection they all seem to have hotel or company names on them.
I also have a bad habit of permanently borrowing pens—can you really steal a pen? Well, yes if you purposefully raid the work supply closet or lift them from a store, but I haven’t done that.
I have a silly thing that I do on my pen at work—yes, pen, singular. I take a little piece of paper and write the date that I start using it and tape it around the pen to the top. When it finally goes dry, I like to see how long it took me to use the whole thing. It’s a bit crazy, but fun.
I realized that even though I was reducing the amount of pens that I use, I was still throwing them away when I was done with them. I couldn’t really nail down a good reliable number of pens thrown away per year, but it is definitely a lot. That’s why I took a trip to the local business supply superstore on my lunch break yesterday to look for my next pen.
I walked in wanting a nice fountain pen, but they cost more than I was willing to pay and the guy that helped me said that some of them had refills that were a bit difficult to locate. We took one out of the glass case and he put one together for me. Apparently he didn’t know how to do it very well and got ink all over his hands. I am definitely sure that I would have made a bigger mess.
I moved from the $50.00 (US) range to the $7- $14 range. I figured that would be about the proper dollar amount that I would like to spend that I would care if it went “missing”. I found a pretty nice refillable pen that is a three in one for $14.00. When you twist it once, a black point comes out. When you twist it again, a red point comes out. And get this, when you twist it to the last setting, a refillable pencil tip comes out. Simple shiny things amuse me.
The best part is that there are refills for the pen that are made by various companies and are easy to find. I just have to figure out how I am going to calculate how long it takes for me to go through each ink.
Invest in a good refillable pen. There are a bunch of them out there for a decent price. Don’t but products that contribute to our throw away society.
