My
Christmas stocking last year was loaded with pens. There were other
things, too -- chocolates, lottery tickets, assorted nic-nacs -- but
pens ruled the day, enough of them to start a small stationary supply
store. They were simultaneously a gift and a message: You will lose most
of them, so here’s half the supply in the tri-state area.
It
was a not-so-subtle reminder of how disposable pens really are. Even
the good ones can be tossed without much thought. These were Pilot
pens, the kind that write fluidly in the silkiest, blackest of ink, and
a single package of them feels about as important and consequential as a
bag of ball bearings. When it comes to writing implements, luxury costs
about two bucks at Family Dollar.
Pens
are convenient and frustrating at the same time -- convenient because
they’re cheap and accessible, frustrating because they need to be cheap and accessible. Nobody ever finishes one. There
are maybe seven times in the history of human civilization when someone
has said, “Hey, look at that! My pen’s out of ink. Time to grab a new
one.” The rest of the time they end up behind
washing machines and under floor mats, used twice and then forgotten,
like a travel toothbrush. If you collected all the ink from all the
world’s forsaken, unused pens, you’d have enough to fill the Grand
Canyon and still have plenty left over for three beer
pitchers and a mid-sized kiddie pool.
We
tolerate this waste because pens are almost considered a universal
right, as much a part of our everyday lives as oxygen and cotton
underwear.
But that wasn’t always the case.
When
I was in third grade our class took a field trip to a one-room
schoolhouse that had been preserved for historical purposes. Also
preserved
was a woman of about 120 who play-acted the role of matronly school
marm, teaching groups of 20th century children a few quaintly obsolete
lessons in subjects such as penmanship and chicken feathering. During
the penmanship lesson, the kids all sat at musty
wooden desks and were handed the standard writing implement of the
pre-industrial school student: The quill pen, a hollowed-out tube topped
with a feather that leaked ink like a bulldog leaks drool.
Equipped
with the quill, a bottle of ink and a sheet of paper, we practiced
writing letters. The real lesson,
of
course, was how lucky we modern kids were compared to
turn-of-the-century pupils, with their Frisbee-sized ink spills and lack
of A-Team lunch boxes. After a crash course in using the quill --
dipping it in the ink bottle, getting just the right angle, using
the precise amount of pressure -- the cockiest among us thought we were
set. We began scratching out our letters: “Dear Mom and Dad…”
Ten
words in, disaster. We’d press a little too hard, or slightly alter the
angles of our wrists, and poof, our paper looked less like a missive
to our loved ones and more like the Rorschach tests they administer to
the psychologically distressed. After “Dear Mom and Dad,” dear Mom and
Dad would have to interpret the rest. “Look honey, a caterpillar giving a
backrub to Joseph Stalin!”
“Frustrated”
is too weak a word for how we felt. Our desks looked like the aftermath
of a mass octopus slaughter. The take-away was that the
simple act of using a pen was once enormously complex, and I imagine
that the people who wrote with them were far less cavalier about where
they ended up. One didn’t find a trove of of discarded quills scattered
about the family outhouse.
Mass
production is what made them so forgettable. Walk into a Staples or an
Office Depot sometime, and take a look at the pen section. It’s
massive. Red ones, blue ones, black ones. Ballpoints, gel pens,
rollerballs. Then there’s the extended pen family, the markers and
highlighters and mechanical pencils. Collectible pens, pens that change
colors, pens that vibrate so the writing is all squiggly.
Before long they’ll come out with a smart pen that can surf the web and
answer questions about obscure Roman emperors. The pen aisle is really
more of a pen wall, a floor-to-ceiling monolith that could be used to
protect a city in the event of rising sea levels.
And when we lose one, we don’t even look for it. We grab the next one
in line and quietly finish our doodle of Snoopy dribbling a basketball.
Pens
were already a throw-away instrument by the time computers became
ubiquitous, but the advent of widespread gadgetry cemented their status
as cheap, ho-hum relics. Why bother with them when you can do
everything on a shiny, factory-fresh tablet? But this belies their
usefulness and functionality. I fancied myself something of a cartoonist
when I was a child, and I have many memories of sitting
at my fancy roll-top desk and sketching characters with my trusty Bic
and a square of scrap paper. There were no apps in those days, hardly
any computer games to speak of, but I never felt bereft -- the blank
sheet on my blotter was an avatar for my imagination.
All I needed to do was scratch out a few sure-handed lines and
geometric shapes and I was deep in the thick of fantasy. Never mind that
these fantasies typically consisted of nerdy skateboarders with
exaggerated noses the size of cruise ships. It was enough.
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