Are you obsessed with pens?
I’m picky about my pens (and pencils too but this post is about pens). Yes, stupid little writing instruments drive me crazy. They have to be comfortable and have a slight heft to them. A lightweight pen doesn’t work. PaperMate 1000 dozen for $0.75 doesn’t do it. A solid pen with a non-cushioned grip doesn’t work. Over-priced and over-rated don’t do it either. I have to have a medium point tip - fine points just end up cutting the paper that I’m writing on - I press pretty hard. Large points (if you can find them) leak.
I had a “favorite” pen. It was - still is - a papermate, solid metal with a cushioned grip and an accordian type sleeve under the click button. It was a good pen with a few design flaws.
The first flaw is the inside threads in the upper half of the pen are plastic. The metal threads from the bottom half wear out the threads. When this first happened I put teflon thread tape on the threads and kept right on using it.
The next flaw - either the design or the adhesive on the barrel grip caused the grip to slide off the end of the pen. No worries there - a little super glue and it kept right on writing. Of course super glue on rubber doesn’t work so well and now the grip is gone again. The pen now sits on my desk - no rubber grip (and with purchased refills still sitting in the “pen cup”.
Earlier this year I went on a quest (limited to the two big office supply stores here in town). I had to replace the pen that I liked. Amazingly, I could find refills but no exact match for the pen at the first stop, and I needed the pen not refills. I spent at least half an hour if not closer to an hour looking over the pen collection at Staples. Not satisfied, I drove across town to Office Max. Nothing there either.
Having resigned myself to the fact that the pen I like might not be made anymore I had already started looking at some options before I replaced the pen I already had - and obsoleted my stash of refills. The pen that was closest to what I wanted turned out to be the G-ForceTM pen.
Despite not seeing refills on the shelf, I bought a two-pack. I figured they would stock refills once the pens were in “circulation” for a while. It turns out the pen is a solid feeling metal pen. The cushion grip is held in place by the screw on tip. While the tip is metal, the threads on the barrel are still plastic and will tend to wear sooner. There is a groove inside the grip that prevents it from spinning on the barrel. Decent design other than the plastic threads.
Today the pen ran out of ink. I just came back from Office Max where I bought some kind of refill. Fortunately the refill fits and works. It is about 1mm longer than the original, but for me it was better than buying a generic break it off at the line kind of refill. Of course when I first opened the pen to peak at the refill I was a little disappointed - the refill was a plastic tube, not the metal style. I believe that the metal tube lasts longer - they tend to be bigger around than the plastic tubes.
And onto the rant portion of this post. Why is it that Office Max dedicates nearly an aisle to pens with the last segment devoted to refills (shared with erasers and mechanical pencil leads)? And there are two brands of refills on the 3 or so partially filled peg rows. If you find a pen you really like chances are there aren’t any refills on the shelf for it. Why can’t they just have one or two style refills like mechanical pencils and be done with it? After all, if I’m going to spend $2 to $3 for a pen I’d like it to last longer than the refill inside it.
