Pens

recently, when i closed an insurance case, the client noticed my cheap ballpoint pen.

"cherub!", she exclaimed, "u should use a better pen".
By a better pen, she meant those branded fountain pen.


problem is, i would die a bankrupt.
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you see, i have a lifelong problem with pens ever since i started using pens (in primary 4? i can't remember when we switched from pencils to pens).

pens run away from me.
every single of them.

firstly, i tend to drop pens, rendering them useless.
ballpoint pens are pretty much, ehm, ball-based. so once u dropped it, the ball will get dislodged and the ink can't flow out smoothly.

"Then don't use Ballpoint pens lah, use other kind!" you say....
(actually i do, i use those japanese gel-based ones, much more sturdy, and still cheap. plus give me a youthful feel. at least when i pretend to be teenager, swirling the pen around)

if u think that those expensive fountain branded pen is indestructible, then obviously mont blanc did not include me as their "typical customer" in their durability and stress tests.

I humbly suggest that mont blanc pay me a handsome sum to test out and market a new range of "durable pen", for people who ought to stick to a dark piece of rock to write.

anyway, this durable pen would probably not be designed cos it would effectively ends the market for normal pens to those "who destroy pens like crazy". since we know these pple effectively contributes to 50% of the bottomlines of pen companies, i guess pen companies have no incentive to sell such a pen.

but then again, 48% of the market belongs to those "who lose pens like crazy".


uhm, i am one of those too.
in fact, it has come to the point, i may consider tagging all my pens. not with those ugly paper tags tat reads "Cherub's" but RFID tags (Radio Frequency Identification). those that they are trying to put in all products to replace barcodes in supermarkets.

U push 1 whole trolley of goods past the cashier, and "Bling!" the entire value is recorded.



Don't you love technology that takes money from you?


but let's not digress.

the reason why I'm considering to RFID my pens is that I can't control them.
seriously, before i break them, they know that they would have a tramatic and short life with me, and so they sneak away the moment my eyes left them.

I once pretend to be asleep and i swore, i heard "clicking" sounds, alike those sounds pens make when they tiptoe away.
of course, i can't be too sure cos I have not heard for myself those sounds that pens make when they tiptoe away.

so i hope that with RFID, at least when they venture 10m more than me, a device in my wallet or watch would beep really loudly and alert me.
of course, it would potentially embarrass me in the middle of orchard road, but i can live with that.
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I once bought a whole box of pens and it lasted less than a month.
pens hate me.