PEN-tastic!

“Hello. My Name is Healthcare Working Girl and I am a pen addict.”

They fan out across my desk in a veritable rainbow of inky fabulosity. Reds. Blues. Blacks. Greens. Purples. Pens are my weakness. Thanks to the technological age I’ve done less handwriting in my adult life with most of my time spent pecking away at computer keyboards but pens own my heart. I love the way a good pen feels in my hand, the way a well designed pen just screams “write with ME!” and the way my handwriting seems to improve dramatically when switching from a bland pen to one created with folks like me in mind. Folks who know pens, who will stop to examine an unfamiliar pen left at a sign in table, sniff pen tips to check the ink quality, and know the perfect paper to pair with a particular pen. I’ve occasionally, unconsciously, walked off particularly well writing pens in unusual colors laying at such a sign in table! Totally involuntarily! Tragic though, since I will also retrace my steps all across town if I misplace one of my beloved writing tools!

I’ve tried out nearly every pen on the market, transitioning over the years from ball point to gel to roller ball. A few years ago, in my past life as a hotel working girl, the daughter of the CEO of Pilot pens took a job with us as an operator. Besides causing people to think they had dialed a 900-number whenever she answered the phone with her oh-so-seductive tone, she showered me with pens in every color and variety. Even pens that had not yet hit the market! She was a pusher and I was a fiend for any good pen she threw my way! I thought I had died and gone to pen heaven!

Pilots have since been my brand of choice but recently, a co-worker gifted me a brand new, blue Sharpie pen and I haven’t been able to put it down. To me, there’s no greater motivation to sit down and write than a fine writing instrument waiting to make contact with a crisp sheet of paper. Yeah, its archaic at this point and my children will probably never understand the simplistic wonder of a pen but I’ll continue scribbling in notebooks, doodling in meetings and scrawling out my thoughts in ink. How about you? Is handwriting going the way of the dinosaur?