My Pen Problem

I consider myself something of a connoisseur - not of fine food or jewelry, but of pens.

Some people are really picky about what kind of food they eat, or what kind of clothes they wear. Me? I'm picky about what kind of pen I use.

My favorite pens are the kind where the ink is almost flowing out of the tip - if you leave the tip of the pen on the same spot on the paper too long it will leave an ink blot. I like them because you don't have to press hard to get a good, crisp line of ink.

My least favorite pens are the old-school bic round stic pens. You know the kind that you can buy 40 of them in a box, in either red, blue or black ink? I don't like those because those are the kind where you almost always have to do a little scribble circle to get the ink flowing cleanly before you can write with confidence. Plus, you have to put a decent amount of pressure on the pen or else you lose your line.

So, I've been using a pen recently that is somewhere between my favorite and my least favorite. I have no idea where it came from, but I pulled it out of my desk a few weeks ago. It's one of those pens you get at the doctor's office with a prescription drug name and logo on it. It's a nice pen. I've never had to do a scribble circle or even push hard while using it.

Last night, however, I ran into a problem with said pen. My wife looked at it and said, "Cialis, isn't that like Viagra?" I quickly disagreed and said it was some kind of allergy medicine. She insisted it was not an allergy medicine, so I looked up Cialis and was fairly disappointed at what I found. You guessed it - it's a Viagra competitor.

So, I've been carrying this pen around for a few weeks now, going in and out of meetings with it, leaving it laying on my desk all day - with no idea what kind of drug I was marketing!

Here's a before-and-after picture of the pen. Problem solved!