The Pen Is Mightier

It must be just my house, but the women in my family, namely my wife and 16-year-old daughter, have not grasped the concept of pen courtesy. You see, both our 24-year-old son and I have an appreciation for writing instruments. My love for them was kind of handed down to me from my father. He always used fountain pens to write, and I inherited that passion for ink-writing instruments.

I’m not a high-end collector by any means, although I do have one or two really nice pens that were given to me, ironically, by my wife. I have two old Mont Blanc pens that I found at a collector’s show, and my most expensive fountain pen I passed on to our son when he graduated from college.

As a writer, using ink pens is romantic to me. To my wife and daughter, pens seem to be a disposable convenience. I say that because whenever I look for a pen in my house, the ones that my wife and daughter have just used are dried out. That’s because they never retract it or replace the caps. Seriously, they treat pens as though they are pencils.

And they never seem to have a pen when they need one. I think secretly they know that I always carry one so they feel they don’t have to. The problem is when they borrow it from me, I kind of have to be a jerk about getting it back or I won’t get it back and it’ll be dried out.

Every Sunday in church, my wife writes a check to put in the collection basket. Although she carries a purse that could fit all the writing instruments from Office Max, she never seems to have a pen. Undoubtedly, I will have to hand over my precious writing instrument. Since we’re in church, I can’t really raise my voice or make a scene about getting it back.

She’s kind of on autopilot, as she’ll write the check, seal it into the collection envelope and then toss my pen into her purse. Of course, I can’t concentrate on anything else until my trusty pen is back in my pocket. For a while I thought about putting one of those retractable cords on my pen, but that would likely ban me from the bedroom. I actually have that in writing from her.