Bic-ography

The complete life, trials, achievements, and sorrows of the pen, as told by someone who has never been one, but considers his pen a very good friend (and therefore knows what he is talking about) :

You may think the lives of pens are simple. That is understandable; most people think of pens as objects with no relationships, no emotions... no worries whatsoever. However, most people have never put themselves in the pen's shoes. Which may be because pens don't wear shoes.

A pen has absolutely no decision making abilities, no control of its life. It is subject to the wit, will, and whim of the hand that holds it. Imagine being a pen in the hands of a toddler. Suddenly, your purpose in life has been reduced to creating random scribblings to be hung on the refrigerator door and mock admired by doting parents. None of your creations actually matter, and all will end up in the trash bin within the week. And that is if you're lucky! The truth is, you are more likely to spend your time exploring the kid's mouth than the surface of the page.

But that is, undoubtedly, a worst case scenario. Things could be better. For instance, imagine being in the hands of a terrorist leader. Used as a powerful tool for planting terror in the hearts of innocent people, you would share responsibility for ransom notes and death threats that, at the hand of another, you literally penned. So much power... so much destruction.

But if you think that's bad, you still know nothing. The majority of pens throughout the world live in hell. Welcome to high school life. Fact: 50% of all high school students don't know the color of the pen that they use.* Why do you suppose that is? It's because they don't care. The high school pen lives most of its life jostled around in a dark backpack, lost among semester-old notes and forgotten pieces of gum. Sporadically, a dirty hand reaches in and finds it, taking it out and using it with the utmost contempt to take illegible notes that will not be reviewed later, and at the first opportunity, back into the backpack the pen goes. All this pen lives for is the fleeting relief of being dropped in the hallway, to breathe fresh air as it is kicked about by hundreds of kids until some poor, head-hung-low reject notices it, picks it up, and begins the routine all over again.

But oh!, to be in the hands of a writer! The author's companion, the journalist's best friend! To go out and see the world, and be held in the utmost respect as you write beautiful descriptions of far-off lands and imaginary paradises... until you run out of ink and are tossed into the recycling bin. Pens don't believe in reincarnation: it's too depressing.

So now I have related to you the genuine feelings of our greatest overlooked accessory: the pen. If you really care, treat your pen with more respect from now on. Wait, actually, if you really care... you're a moron.

*Don't tell anyone, but this is actually a result of the fact that half of all high schoolers use pencil.