Day 149 – Memoirs of a pen named Pen

January 4th, 2010

(The following is from the perspective of a ballpoint pen. Named Pen)

I’ve lived a good life. I write to you with the last reminisce of my ink. I want to immortalize my legacy and share my life’s story with you.

I was born a poor black pen in a small village in France in the year 1992. I was one of an octuplet. My mother (a beautiful feathered pen) was approached by an agent from BIC who saw our ink to paper potential. He wanted to take us to America and mother accepted his offer as she knew we would have a better life in the New World. The eight of us were packaged in a transparent yellow rimmed package and sent directly to a card and gift shop in a strip mall in Duluth, Georgia. We hung on the wall in the company of spiral notebooks, scissors and rubber cement (who would let us sniff them.) After about a month of shelf life, my siblings and I were purchased by a housewife who gave us to her son in the 4th grade. I believe his name was Angus. I was quickly separated from my brothers and sisters when this hellion of a boy abruptly opened our packaging in his social studies class and started dividing us off to his classmates. It was quite traumatic. The teacher was trying to instill some “sharing is caring” lesson. That bitch. I was on my own and was pimped off to a 10 year old named Lucinda who frequently stuck me in her mouth and chewed on my delicate plastic outer shell. My remaining years were spent with a shameful teeth marked deformity.

After about three weeks with Lucinda, she left me on her dining room table and I was retrieved by her he father. A lawyer. He would solicit business from accident victims and their families. A real class act. As fate would have it, he left me in an Olive Garden and I was handed off to the manager who was off to an Olive Garden managerial conference in Vegas. I never actually made it to sin city because he left me on seat 8A on Jet Blue flight 2536. This particular plane did quite a few international flights and an extreme sports enthusiast named Bolt was the next passenger to take the seat and I ended up in his backpack. I was on “his person” when he went skydiving in New Zealand. I think Bolt and I really bonded when we were flying through the air with views of National Parks, blue oceans, golden beaches and meandering rivers. We felt bad about landing on and killing that dingo. Bolt and I were reamed out by a local animal rights activist who was on his way to DC for the “Save the Labradoodles March”. As a peace offering, Bolt handed me off to this vegan and a few days later I was in Washington. I did the march but the following chain of events is a blur. After the rally, I ended up in a hookah bar with my “hipster” host and passed out from the smell of patchouli and molasses flavored tobacco. I came to a few days later in a mug that said “World’s Greatest President”. I was in an office that was oval shaped and a charming southern man was doing naughty things to an intern. All I know is that I got on TV when this smooth gentleman had me sign something called the Brady Bill, which imposes a five-day waiting period on handgun purchases so that background checks can be done to help keep handguns away from criminals.

This powerful man took me with him to a conference at the United Nations in New York and the next thing I know is that I’m in the hands of a Yemen leader named Muhammad Said al-`Attar. A few days later I was living with him in his homeland located in an Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia. This was a dark time because I spent several years under a couch cushion with his remote control and some foreign coins. Eventually I was retrieved and did some international traveling with this Yemenite head of state and landed in Argentina…in his mistress’s Prada handbag. During this time, I had a brief and passionate affair with a tampon. She was Super.Super Plus.

My senior years were spent at college keggers, writing illegible doctor prescriptions and at a women’s high security prison. One of these ladies escaped through some hole she cut in her cell wall. With a spork. I fled with her and ultimately ended up in some Polynesian Country. I write to you from a trash can at a tiki bar.

My ink is close to running out. But I feel it is my purpose to leave a message for the pens of the world…fountain, calligraphy and Erasermates. Live your life proud. Write. Write like the wind because Microsoft Office will soon make you obsolete. You will be lost. Like teardrops in the rain.

XOXO

Pen