What Do People Say To You When You Whip Out That Pen?

[GabrielleDuVent]

 

I don't think I've ever seen a pocket protector. Or maybe I have and I didn't recognize it?

 

I'm a writer, so I don't have to wear dress clothes, and my current strategy for hiding ink stains is to buy nothing but black shirts so any stains won't show. I probably look like a failed goth on the occasions that the shirts get paired with my black pants (I do also wear regular blue jeans), but, hey.

 

What?! You don't look like the writer from the Giorgio Armani advert?!

 

Black shirt is a good shirt to wear, unless you wear it with some outlandish tie. But otherwise, the worst you'll look is a fancy waiter... but they do dress sharp, don't they?

 

I keep my pens in a pencase, after I accidentally sat on one... it broke (I kept it in a back pocket), and I had to go home with a big blue stain on my rear. Lesson learned.

[Montblanc owner and lover]

More often for me: Wow,is it really a Montblanc?

it's true that it's not common to see a student like me using such pens to take notes at university but it's kinda boring when they are disturbing you from your notes taking to talk about your pen...

[Chthulhu]

Oops.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Chthulhu

[requiescat]

I have now scored a "nice pen" from someone. Which makes me smile--it's one of my favorite pens, but I don't think he got a good look at it as it's somewhat scuffed from posting, and furthermore it's a Webster, not, you know, a Montblanc or something fancy.

[Scycotic]

Well I don't quite remember what the exact first words were...but the other day my coworkers at my new workplace suddenly noticed I was using FPs...and I do believe it made their day. It seems they had all used them in school and it brought back many memories One of them was like "I haven't seen those since I moved to Canada!"

Edited July 20, 2013 by Scycotic

[N2theBreach]

Well I don't quite remember what the exact first words were...but the other day my coworkers at my new workplace suddenly noticed I was using FPs...and I do believe it made their day. It seems they had all used them in school and it brought back many memories One of them was like "I haven't seen those since I moved to Canada!"

 

There have been a few times when seeing me use my pen brought back memories for people. It makes me feel good when I do something ordinary that takes people away for just a moment to a different time and place.

[jetsam]

People are usually too amused by my pocket protector to notice what's in it.

A clean shirt is worth an occasional snigger or two.

[JessR45]

Most people want to know (1) what is that? (2) why am I using it? Being such a techie, it confuses most people.

 

 

Myste

Same here . In meetings I have attended my pens always produce a reaction, mostly positive (but I've seen some folks half-roll their eyes, specially if I happen to show a shiny MB or a flamboyant Montegrappa ). Some have followed me back to my cube to talk more about (which I am always so willing to do), and try them out. They are actually surprised how much fun they are having writing with them. I hope to convince some to join our hobby someday.

[lynxcat]

"oh, you've got your own pen? okay."

 

might be because my daily carry pen is a hooded nib, so most folks don't even notice it's not a ballpoint, so much as they notice i'm not picking up the cheapskate bic stick they're trying to lend me to use. it seems nobody carries a pen around these days.

 

the other day i was (unusually) carrying my Ahab, and an older gentleman said he remembered such pens from his youth, mentioning lever fillers. i ended up showing him the piston filling system, and mentioned the leaking issues are pretty much solved on modern pens.

[Dj Shift]

The questions i get asked the most (i'm a high school student by the way so these are coming from kids):

 

"Whoa!!! That looks awesome!"

 

"Can i try it?"

 

"You spent that much on a pen!?!"

 

The most memorable response i've gotten (was using my only pen at the moment, the TWSBI Vac 700 in clear):

 

"Is that a knife with poison in it?"

 

 

Normally when people ask if they can try it i let them but give them a warning in advance that if they break it, they will be paying me the $70 to replace it. And that they cant press it to the paper too hard. All of them have given up after only writing a line though and it's always a squigly line because they're all nervous and dont want to ruin it so their hands are shaking.

Edited January 28, 2014 by Dj Shift

[dragonfly7]

I work in the schools and handed my pen to an administrator to sign a document. He looked at it and said No Thanks,that's one of those scary pens!

 

Must have had a traumatic childhood experience !

Edited January 29, 2014 by dragonfly7

[abritdownunder]

I've only recently returned to fountain pens, after many decades, so I haven't had too many reactions to my using a fountain pen. Last week at a meeting someone, who I didn't know, saw the pen I was using (a Montblanc 149) and said I must be British (equating fountain pen use with 'Britishness' for some reason) and yesterday I was interviewing a 19 year old lad for a place on a course and when I took my fountain pen out he asked me if that was a knife!

 

But on the whole people don't even notice, people tend to be busy and engrossed in their own work, so they don't take notice of things like other people's pens, no matter how beautiful the pen might be! Sad really, I've started to look around more at the pens people use, hoping to see a fellow fountain pen addict.

 

Kevin

[Dj Shift]

Forgot to mention, often times when i've let a teacher use my pen, they know what it is and write with it fine but i can tell they secretly have no idea how to use it and just get lucky that they're doing it right. Like they'll stare at it while going down towards their paper slowly hoping i'll say something if it's upside-down. It's sometimes hard not to laugh. Especially when i had this one 25 year old substitute who rode my bus as a high schooler back when i was in the elementary and now he's a teacher. He was refusing to say anything about the pen even though he knew he wanted to and he was holding his breath while writing his name on my hall pass.

[JefferyS]

That should have read "rolled". I hate typing on an iPad.

---------

 

I was taking notes at a meeting using a Gate City Belmont (Galapagos). One of the biology faculty roller her eyes back and said "Dr. Smith and his $20 pens!". Ten years or so ago, I gave one of my students from 1980 a Waterman Expert II as a graduation present. She apologized later that she lost it somewhere immediately. She also remarked that it must have cost me $20 (for the record, it was about $100).

 

Bottom line? Fountain pen = calligraphy pen = $20 at Barnes and Noble.

[amberleadavis]

That should have read "rolled". I hate typing on an iPad.

---------

 

I was taking notes at a meeting using a Gate City Belmont (Galapagos). One of the biology faculty roller her eyes back and said "Dr. Smith and his $20 pens!". Ten years or so ago, I gave one of my students from 1980 a Waterman Expert II as a graduation present. She apologized later that she lost it somewhere immediately. She also remarked that it must have cost me $20 (for the record, it was about $100).

 

Bottom line? Fountain pen = calligraphy pen = $20 at Barnes and Noble.

 

ARGHHHHHHH

[amberleadavis]

I work in the schools and handed my pen to an administrator to sign a document. He looked at it and said No Thanks,that's one of those scary pens!

 

Must have had a traumatic childhood experience !

 

That's funny coming from the disher out of trauma.

 

[JPR75]

Lately, a colleague asked me when I started smoking.

He thought that my TWSBI 580 was an electronic cigarette ...

[Aquinata]

So far nothing. No one has ever said a word...

[RMN]

Lately, a colleague asked me when I started smoking.

He thought that my TWSBI 580 was an electronic cigarette ...

 

D.ick

[lreiley]

I teach high school, so I often get the "that's a cool pen" response followed by a request to try it, thereby squishing the nib. Recently, however, I was showing off my Luoshi to a fellow writing utensil enthusiast/student, who said, "It reminds me of the Romeo and Juliet times."