When
All The Pens Go Missing
This is a
household where writers live. Three of us and a seven year old.
So who steals the pens? One of the greatest mysteries of
man, aside from the Great Sock Caper that your dryer pulls off
each laundry day.
I
frequently buy a package on sale. I carefully put them in the pen
cup on my desk, warning my family to keep their grubby paws off of
them. I get a flash of brilliance and I can’t find a pen.
Now,
don’t get me wrong. This has no paramount significance in my
life. It’s just one of those things. Although, it does affect my
writing to a degree.
I share
this computer with two other members of my family. My husband
loves time on to play computer games and mess about with his
websites. But for him, it’s a leisure activity. My seven year
old gets time, too. She plays games and does a children’s typing
course for her keyboarding skills. So, I have to use pens on
occasion. When I can find one.
I’m not
asking a lot. In fact I’m asking for one little thing. The pen
gods find it humorous to taunt me with flashes of pen imagery.
They laugh and make pithy remarks about how writers forget things.
They sip their ambrosia and chuckle at my frustration. They wait
for the moment when I’m looking for a pen and slip one behind my
right ear. They collapse in laughter when I look in the mirror and
wonder where my sanity is going without me.
I find
pens on occasion. I found one just yesterday behind the cat box.
Yes, cat box. Don’t ask me how it got there. Don’t bother
asking my seven year old. She doesn’t even know what color the
cat box is. She’d rather be invisible when it comes time to
clean it. She would have no clue how the pen got there. Maybe the
cats played floor hockey with it on one of their midnight romps
down the hall.
We have
five of them. Navarre doesn’t steal pens. He’s a huge black
cat with the deepest green eyes I’ve ever seen. But he can’t
write a word. Pywacket is too fat to bother with pens. He’s into
mothering the rest. Polgara is nursing a hungry brood of two
weeks. She tripping over her bountiful teats. Hardly in a position
to scoot pens down hallways. Buddy? Well, Buddy is a corker
alright. He’d steal the pen, but he’s much too preoccupied
with his human (my husband) to bother with such mundane things.
Turtle Butt (don’t ask) is way too tiny. The pen outweighs him
by four ounces. He has no clue what a cat box even looks like.
He’s one of the tiny brood. The pen behind the cat box remains a
mystery. And it’s location remains behind the cat box. My
husband can pick it up when he does the litter.
I saw
another pen on top of the microwave a few days ago, but alas, it
has flown the coop.
I know I
saw one in the bathroom. (Is there a pattern here?)
That one is usually for crossword puzzles and list making.
I once used lip liner for the Sunday puzzle. Messy, but workable.
My purse
is a dead loss. It’s more of a backpack really. It hasn’t been
able to hold a pen in its gravitational pull for years. I put them
in, never to see them again. Like the socks from the dryer. Gone.
Sucked into the wastelands, full of skeletal remains of socks,
your favorite earring and grocery lists. Vast deserts, strewn with
vanished items. Dark, dismal and reminiscent of the Twilight Zone.
I guess
my only option is to keep on buying pens on sale. It’s either
that or tie one to my desk leg like a bank. I did that once, with
a pen near my grocery list pad. Two days later I found a cut
string. Didn’t work. I need heavy chain if I’m going to go
tha4 route.
For now,
at least I know where to find one should I need it. Now where did
I put that disinfectant?
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Copyright 2002 – SatiricQuill
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