A Nice Ballpoint Pen

 Back about 3 decades ago, when I first started working for the water treatment chemical company, my employer would frequently talk about a certain ballpoint pen he would like to have. He thought it was a symbol to have one of these very expensive ballpoint pens. At that time I think they might have been around $300.00. I don't remember the brand, and I don't remember if he ever got one.

But I do remember that he liked for himself and his employees to present a nice appearance. I didn't wear a tie here locally, but I did at the main office. But I was always dressed, I guess you would say professionally.  And I have to admit that the way we dressed in those days to go out and approach the public at the places we would sell to, worked. Some years later he dialed down the dress code a bit, and provided us with logo shirts to wear. They were okay, but it wasn't quite the same after that, at least to me. Frankly, I kind of miss those days.

Anyway, back to the ballpoint pen. I was not able to afford one of those pens at the time, but I decided I would like something a little nicer than one of the plastic bic pens I was using.

So, one day I was in Target store, and I started browsing the ballpoint pen section looking for a relatively nice pen. And lo and behold, they had a pretty nice looking stainless steel ballpoint pen made by Parker. I tried to insert an image here but I can't get it to co-operate.

It is a smooth stainless steel pen, looks very nice in just about any setting. So I bought it and it cost me $5.00. Next year I bought another, next year another, and finally they got up to about $11 and then Target quit carrying that model.

Anyway, one of my responsibilities was to analyze the chemicals in the boiler water for the customer, and write a service report and get the customer to sign it, and leave them a copy.

So this one customer, my contact was this girl named Kathy. She was about 6' 4" tall, I shit you not. And skinny.

I brought her the service report, laid it on the desk in front of her, placed my $5.00 ballpoint pen and asked her to sign it. She did then she looked at me and said, "That's a nice pen." I said yes it was and went to take back my pen. Again, she said "That's a nice pen." And again I said yes it is. After one more time of her saying thats a nice pen, it hit me. That was her way of asking if she could have the pen.

So I gave her my ballpoint pen, and had to go back to using bic pens. Last year I found an old briefcase of mine and started scrounging thru the thing, and I found one of those pens. And it still works! Will wonders never cease!