By: Bob Woessner, retired journalist
As you know, ball-points – retractable or non-mechanical, purchased or free – move on their own. One day, there will be half a dozen on the cabinet under the phone and a similar number on the desktop in our office. The next day, there won’t be a pen in sight.
My first thought was that pens are migratory by nature. But “migratory” implies creatures that annually move from one part of the world to another – think monarch butterflies and Canada geese. Pens, however, come from all over the map – from banks and clinics, car dealerships and motels. They don’t go back to where they came from, so they are not migratory.
Perhaps, then, pens are “free-range” – allowed to graze where they want like the expensive beef and costly chicken eggs at the supermarket. If pens are free-range grazers, they should gain weight. But they do not. The sad life story of ball-point is that it will be tossed when drained.
The descriptive I now lean toward is “feral.” The dictionary defines that as, “Existing in a wild or untamed state; especially, having reverted to such a state from domestication.” That applies to the second pair of pen subsets – purchased and free.
Pens you buy – if you are foolish enough to buy pens when so many are available free – hang domesticated in blister-packs in stores from convenience to department. The pens wise people get for free most often are cooped up in containers at reception desks. Take them out of that environment – un-tame them, if you will – and they roam and, eventually, become feral.
You may argue that “feral” implies “dangerous” and that there is nothing to fear from a creature as benign as a ball-point. But look closer and you will realize that ball-points are not benign. If they were, they would not leave blue or black stains on your fingers and in your pockets. They would not run out of ink at exactly the moment when they are most needed.
So, feral is now my preferred descriptive. I will write that down when I can find a pen.
Thanksgiving morning the kitchen TV displayed the Macy’s Parade. Watching a bit of it was yet another lesson in being out of it.
I am used to not being able to identify the B-list celebrities who show up to smile and gush for the camera at such events. There were three network hosts and I recognized only Al Roker. But I will do better with the balloons, thought I. Wrong!
The Macy’s stars were easily recognizable. The Sinclair Dino was there for those of us of a certain age and older. I got Snoopy and Smokey Bear, Ronald McDonald and The Nutcracker – even Sponge Bob SquarePants. But not much after that.
The parade website listed all the balloons. It identified Jett and Olaf, Chase from Paw Patrol, Harold the Farmer, Mighty Morphin Red Ranger, Goku, Wiggle Worm and the Trolls – Poppy, Branch and Guy Diamond. Who? What?
If we are around next Thanksgiving, I will have a smartphone or tablet on the breakfast table to help me identify the creatures I am seeing- both human and inflatable. I may take notes, assuming a ball-point pen is at hand.
