A Ball Point Romance

A Ball Point Romance
Dave Wright

I’m a pen snob. It’s peculiar that someone with my poor penmanship is so particular about the type of pen he uses to scribble on a page—and yet, that is what I am.

            For years the love of my life was a red-barreled, medium-built Paper Mate ballpoint with a blue fine-point cartridge. Her thin-barrel cousin was too spindly; her full-figured sister was so thick in the middle I felt like a light-weight wrestler thrown into a heavy-weight cage match. The medium-barrel model was my kind of gal.

            I carried her for over ten years, dutifully replacing her used up cartridges with a stockpile hidden securely in my bedroom dresser drawer.

            Once, while traveling with family friends in an RV on a cross-country vacation, I was taking a break from driving and sleeping soundly in the bunk above the cab. Our two sons and the other three children travelling with us were bored and looking for a distraction from the monotony of the Montana prairie.  Eric, our eight-year old son, whispered to the others, “Watch this. Let’s see if I can sneak Dad’s pen out of his pocket without him knowing it.” (They used to tease me that I even carried her in my swim suit.) The kids huddled around Eric as I snored. My chest rose and fell with the regular rhythm of deep sleep. He gently grasped the pen and eased her from my shirt pocket with the deft touch of a professional pick-pocket. Just as my love was being kidnapped from her permanent home, I heard a familiar click as her clip snapped against her trim barrel. That little click jolted me awake as if someone had shot a .22 next to my ear. With the automatic action of a western gunslinger, my hand flew against my heart, trapping the thief’s hand and rescuing my beauty from certain humiliation. 

            By the time Eric graduated from high school, I thought he might be mature enough to take on a similarly deep relationship. I purchased a brand new Paper Mate—a clone to mine—and slipped it in his hand as he boarded the plane to begin his college career. As I waved good bye I imagined my gift crafting newsy letters home, essays full of original ideas, maybe even a doctoral thesis. I waited a week, then two for the first letter home.  Nothing. Finally I made a call to see how Eric and his soul mate were getting along. I was stupefied to learn that my heart-felt gift had been lost without a tear before the plane landed at LAX.

            A series of heart wrenching disasters followed. First of all, no additional replacement cartridges could be found—even in the nooks and crannies of the internet.  I had stocked up with more than a dozen after my wife tired of ordering them one at a time.  But my absence must have been noticed by Paper Mate.  Not only did they discontinue manufacturing replacement cartridges, they discontinued making the pen itself.

            I found this unconscionable. I had no option but to file for divorce. I bitterly claimed infidelity and sought punitive and emotional damages.  After all, I could no longer work reliably—and substitute writing instruments gave my hand a cramp.  After so many years of conformity my fingers rebelled at anything new. My right hand had become a lump of clay fired in the oven of middle age, unable to remodel itself. Additional compensation for counseling and retraining was a must.

            I was a mess. I was too young to retire. I couldn’t abandon penmanship in favor of a keyboard and a smartphone. I had to start dating again!

A claustrophobic fear like being trapped under a boulder gave me night sweats for weeks.  But eventually I pulled myself together, gathered my courage and told myself, “You can do it! You’ll be a stronger person for surviving another of life’s brutal injustices.”

            I started searching for my next true love on line—as I heard was standard procedure for baby boomers and millennials after a breakup. I gazed at pictures, imagined a body shape that could again fill the embrace of my empty hand, and tried to sense the easy flow of ink to paper.  I checked out reviews and looked up availability of replacement parts so I wouldn’t fall victim to another nonsensical fashion change. I sought durability. I demanded perfection in a world that was content to grab a stick pen from a cup full of castoffs. Nothing, not even my temporary infatuation with a slender Parker Premium inspired me to place an order for a date. I needed to hold her hand.  I needed old fashioned personal contact.

            I thought Office Depot might be a safe place for my first dating experience in more than a decade, but I found it to be much like window shopping in the Amsterdam Red Light District: you can see but you can’t touch. All the ball points, felt tips, fountains and roller gels were safely secured behind a chastity belt of industrial grade plastic. The tantalizing prospect of beginning a relationship was, once again, just out of reach. My only option was to take a risk and cough up the money.  I broke down and chose a three-pack pack of Pilot G2 Roller Gels with fine point blue ink. I tried one of the sisters in the pack. She laid down a beautiful 0.7 mm line but she scratched the paper like a fingernail on a chalk board. She just didn’t have the easy touch of my old ball point.

            My frustration led to a frenzy of promiscuity: a one-night stand with an arm-candy Cross, a fling with a trio of freebies flaunting their skimpy company logos, even a romp with an old high school sweetheart—a chewed-on yellow BIC I discovered at the bottom of a dusty drawer. They all left me empty and unfulfilled.

            I’m finally going steady with a Zebra F-301. She doesn’t have the class of the former love of my life, but she’s dependable and doesn’t waste ink dripping at every pause.  I doubt that I’ll ever propose because I don’t know if I could commit to another permanent relationship. But then, maybe she wouldn’t accept me if I asked—me being such a pen snob and all.

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