Monday, February 16, 2009

The Pen Is Mightier

Some of you are aware of my neurotic obsession with ink pens. Basically, I have found the perfect pen and all others I consider substandard. I have a similar affection for other office supplies, but the pens are definitely highest on the list. I cherish my pens. I know where each of them are at any given time, how many I have in circulation, and pretty much refuse to use anything else in my checkbook register.

Crazy, I know.

When I was working, I would chase down anyone who tried to walk off with my pen. More than once I followed my boss into his office to retrieve my precious writing utensil. Yes, I was taking my life in my own hands.

Just kidding. But not really.

Anyway, my favorite pens are now a little difficult to find. They used to be carried in office supply stores, but now they have to be ordered online. Apparently not enough people realize their writing could be taken up a notch if they were to use these pens.

I was getting down to my last few precious pens, calculating mentally how much time I had before having to order an entire box of them. I pulled out my next to last pen and it wouldn't work.

Tragedy.

So I pulled out my last pen. It didn't work either.

That was it. With the combined difficulty to acquire and two of them crapping out on me, I decided that it might be time to find a new pen. So I started looking. But I was unable to find anything even close to the stellar performance of my long-time favorite.

So I wrote the company. I went onto their website and sent an email to customer service and explained my situation. I figured that would be it. But it made me feel better, even with the prospect of having to use substandard pens in the future.

But then I got an email from a customer service rep. She asked if I would send my broken pens to them for a quality control examination and allow them to send me some replacement pens.

Um, yeah I will!

Several days later, a large envelope arrived from the pen company. I opened it, expecting to find two replacement pens. She didn't send me two pens. She sent me six pens! That's right, a whole half-dozen.

I was excited. And Husband made fun of me.

As I held my pens high in triumph and carried them to the office for safekeeping, Husband asked if I was going to blog about my pen saga.

I just said, "What do you think?" Pin It

3 comments:

  1. that just made me laugh out loud! i do agree with you, my pen is very important to me too! the only problem is i lose it 3 or 4 times a day, i need back up like you have!

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  2. i'm a pencil kind of girl. well, actually, a pencil with a good eraser kind of girl.

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  3. Anonymous10:32 PM

    I have my favorite pen, and I use nothing else in my check register. nothing. I also keep multiples and always buy another package when I open the one I have stashed in the back of my desk. Oddly enough, I too have tracked down many a pen thief to reclaim MY pen.

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