I Steal Pens

I have a confession.

I steal pens.

No, I’m not talking those cheap BIC pens that the entire world seems to have a million of in their home yet no one seems to ever remember buying them. And I’m not talking expensive Mon Blanc one’s either (now THAT would be a sin!!). I’m talking NICE, every day pens or unusual ones, or ones that write nice or whatever. Pens. Just pens.

My latest acquisition is a Pentel HyperG 07, black. I lifted it from my boss. It was sitting back on our kitchen table, I picked it up, doodled on the napkin it was next to, and I knew, I KNEW I had to have it.

It was like the first time I saw the bootleg copy of a Bay City Rollers album FROM ENGLAND in that funky record store in East Hills – I had to have it. (NO! I did NOT steal the album… I begged and BEGGED my mom for it.)

Yeah just like that.

Even as I type this, I’m staring at a Pilot P-500 Extra Fine, blue, that I lifted from my friend Lisa’s house (I told her about that one and she GRACIOUSLY gave me another when I whinned about how the ink was running low).

And somewhere on my desk is a red pen that my roomie loaned me to read (and correct) a paper she was working on. I gave back the paper; I still have the pen.

I even once stole a pen from a waitress at Outback. But that was because it had Jim Stewart’s name on it and I worked for Ritchie Skipper. The waitress called me on it. I apologized. Left her one of those cheap Bic pens (seriously WHO buys those things and why are there so many of them in the world) and tossed the Jim Stewart pen in the trash as soon as I walked outside.

I do, however, have rules:

The pens MUST be owned by someone. Not necessarily someone I know, just someone. I don’t steal pens from a store or anything. (Well there was that one that I found sitting on the shelf next to the coffee in Walmart. CLEARLY with someone’s shopping list… I did take that one home. But only after I did my shopping and went back and it was STILL there. It was a BIC Mark-it Fine Point Permanent Marker – TUXEDO BLACK afterall!!)

They must write well. I mean, seriously, what is the use of taking a cheap pen?

If the owner of the pen will get totally annoyed over losing the pen… oh yeah, that pen is MINE!

I keep the pen until it totally dies. And even then, I tend to keep them. I have this box in the bottom of my desk at home filled with pens (and a few pencils) that I’ve lifted over the years.

And if I can blame it on someone else – all the better. I had my entire office convinced that someone else in that office stole all the pens. And, technically, she did take most of them. But again, they were those DARN cheap ones. I only lifted the cool ones.

Oh yeah, I steal pens.