I spent the whole of Sunday obsessing over my space pen, because I’d lost it. I also broke my tooth, but I was far more concerned over my pen. I mean, that pen’s damned good.
I think it’s because I’d had that pen on me, continually, for over a year. I originally brought it because I saw Merlin Mann toting one in a video, which is a terrible reason to buy an expensive pen, but it’s a space pen. It’s the pen made for NASA’s astronauts, and it’s super-duper in that it can write underwater and in fire and upside-down. I’ve tested this (apart from the thing with the fire).
But it’s also tiny. When I came back to recuperate at the Hindle Family Book Repository I knew I’d lose it at some point; tidiness does not run in our genes. In fact, so messy is our house that I knew I wasn’t about to find it after the first five minutes of looking for it. I huffed and I puffed, and generally made a bit of a twat about myself by extolling the virtues of this pen to my parents.
Really, I was just annoyed at myself for losing it. It’s probably the only thing I’ve kept on my person for the whole year. It’s usually warm when I pull it out of my pocket to scribble notes. Or to pass it to somebody who really needs a pen, making me look super-organised (although it’s blatantly obvious I’m not).
In the end, I let it ruin my whole day. I did brake one of my teeth, but I was so annoyed about losing my pen I didn’t freak out and panic like I usually do about dentistry (perhaps this is a side affect of recent events – don’t sweat the small stuff). Eventually, I went to bed, annoyed at losing the pen, but more annoyed at myself for not letting go.
I woke up the next morning and put my favourite jumper on. In the pocket was my space pen; it’d taken all of two minutes to find it, and most of that time was spent working out which arm to put in the armhole.
Comments
5 Comments so far. Comments are closed.hi, was just reading your blog which mat cowan told me about. It’s really good. You have a great style of writing. Also found out you were ill.
Hope you are better now.
All the best wishes
James J-P
You’ve just made me really want a space pen.
I’ve checked out the prices on Amazon, thought how the cost verses usefulness works out to actually be a sound investment, and then I remembered: I loose pens three times a day, and in despertation I have occasionally had to resort to writing in lipliner. I also find that a fine Bic biro is quite satisfying, and at considerably less cost, I have decided that, alas, a space pen is not for me.
This little foray into the world of Uber Stationary has distracted me from what I am supposed to be doing for a good 10 minutes, though, so yeay.
Happy to provide distraction!
Oddly, the cheapest place that sells space pens is the next market town over from me, so yesterday I got a chance to look at the other colours. I own the manly matt black pen, but the shiny silver one looked like it was something straight out the fifties…
The main thing with these expensive ball-points is they don’t splotch all the time, like regular biros. It does make me curious about what happens if you pay even more money for pens, but not that curious.
space pen? didn’t the russians just use a pencil?
That’s a common misconception, and it does have an element of truth in it – but the space pen was so good that it eventually got adopted by both sides of the space race. I mean – c’mon, they went to frickin’ space. They invented velcro. Neither side were scrimping cash by not buying pens.