Thursday, March 04, 2004
Of Mice and Pen
This morning the voice of Disneyland greeted me as I awoke. Not the helium-induced tonalities of Rodentus Mickius, but the gravelly intonations of Mike Eisner. Regardless of his involvement with the Happiest Place on Earthtm, he’s got the voice of the angriest cabbie in Chicago. Kel was wondering whom he sounded more like - Charles Rangel or Grandma Bouvier (sorry about the tiny image, it’s the best I could find). Regardless, he’s getting a fat taste of Reality-land as stockholders Big Thunder Railroad him out of his board chairmanship, leaving him nearly powerless as a mere CEO, with no one but his good buddy George Mitchell running interference on his behalf with the governing body. It’s a heartwarming tale of greed, avarice, money and greed. And the occasional fake mouse.
We heard something on that news story about a meeting that featured “life sized mickey mouse figurines.” Kel asked what size that would be: mouse sized? The size of a person wearing a pantomime mouse suit, which is human-sized to the shoulders and then freakishly gigantocephalic upstairs? Or the size Mickey was in cartoons, which is about up to a person’s knee? Our lively breakfast table debate over this issue prevented me from following the rest of the news on this critical subject, so instead I’ll just share a story about a ballpoint pen.
The clerk at my office is a good guy, even though he really likes Disneyland. He’s not the sort to ram it down anybody’s throat but he enjoys the rides, the atmosphere, the spirit of the place. I like rides well enough, but Disneyland sort of creeps me out. Too synthetic, too calculated, too commercial. Plus, that damn mouse makes me nervous.
The clerk returned from a Disneyland trip about eighteen months ago or so, bearing gifts. That’s the kind of guy he is, just an all-around mensch - even though he’s a struggling student working part-time, he brought back a little something for everybody in the department: a keychain, a decal - and for me, a disposable ballpoint pen.
I use pens a lot. I use them at work and at play, and not just for writing - also as gougers and priers for minor household tasks, as sleep-discouraging devices (by pressing the point into the palm of my hand during particularly dull meetings when I feel unconsciousness slipping up on me), and as toys to keep my wayward fingers occupied when they’d otherwise be running wild and getting me into trouble. Hey, I even used a pen to write this essay in my notebook last week. But even though I was grateful for the sentiment of the gift, I had misgivings about this particular pen. Not only was it from Disneyland, but it said so in those well-known goofytm gothic-revival letters. Plus, the ink looked a bit too turquoise for a person of my intense masculinity. Plus (and this was the killer), there was a little clear blue plastic mouse standing on the cap of the pen, waving at me. That blasted mouse. This was one pen I expected not to use.
Within a few hours, necessity intervened. I needed to jot something down and the mouse pen was the pen that was handy. (No, I did not write my notes on a mouse pad. Try to concentrate here.) I grabbed the pen, tossed the garrish cap aside, seized the soft rubber grip and started writing.
Let it not be said that I don’t know when I’m wrong. Despite my misgivings, the pen was a pleasure to use. The ink was a strong mid-blue, easy to read, neither overly somber nor cloyingly cheerful. It dried fast, didn’t smear. The grip was surprisingly comfortable. The fine metal point glided across the page so easily it even seemed to improve my wretched handwriting. Apart from the corporate sponsorship and the stupid mouse, that pen completely rocked.
It rocked so hard, in fact, that I decided to use it only sparingly - to conserve it. I wanted it to last. (Also, I didn’t want anyone else to see me using it for fear of being called a Mouseketeer or a Disneydork or something.) So I set it aside for signatures, special inscriptions, little tasks requiring superior orthography. And thus it lasted for eighteen months or so.
Until last week. As I wrote last week in my mini-notebook (the “ideas” notebook) that it would soon be exhausted, the ink stopped flowing. As if on cue, it was finished. Kaput. Expired. Spent. Empty. Dead.
I didn’t want to throw it away - over the months I had grown quite fond of it, forgiving it its waving rodent in light of its exemplary performance. But in the end it was a disposable pen, and the time had come to dispose of it. I dropped it in my deskside trashbucket with a pang of loss that I still feel today. I have plenty of pens, but the good one is now gone.
I think back to that clear plastic Mickey waving to me, and in my mind, I wave back.
