New Species of Nerd Discovered: The Pen Fanboy

Staedtler, baby.

I picked up the Staedtler liquid point 7 (no capitalizations, thank you) at my local Staples, and now I am a convert. I am sold. You should be too. The Omega Pen exists, and it is available at your local office supply store in convenient four-packs. Holding the pen is what I imagine holding Excalibur or Mjölnir or Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi must feel like. You know, if they were pens.

It's as if the gray, no-nonsense PaperMate from accounting and the glitter-bedecked pink-ink gelpen from a teenage girl's diary got drunk at the Bic social and shared a night of forbidden passions, and this pen was their offspring. It's the college professor who knows how to laugh; it's the billionaire who wears an open sport coat with his t-shirt and jeans. It's what St. Peter would use to check off the names of souls as they enter Heaven if Heaven hadn't gone paperless in 2002.

In unrelated news, I'm fully confident that, years from now, it's the pen I'll be using to sign a DNAR on my deathbed. I'll marvel as every involuntary shake of my agèd, withered hand shows through in lines of perfect evenness, smoothness, and clarity. I shall soon thereafter draw my final breath, Staedtler still in my slowly-relaxing clutches, and that shall be the story of me.

It's also the most modest, least pretentious pen ever. The double-vowel in "Staedtler" isn't that fancy-pants Æ character that all the goths put in their fake goth names to make themselves look ancient or Roman or whatever—it's just an A and an E next to each other. The "Made in Germany" isn't in giant neon letters along the side, with a "Type R" sticker hastily slapped on the end; instead, it's in tiny block printing just below where the cap rests flush with the rest of the pen (minus the Type-R sticker). There to be appreciated, but not celebrated. Class.

In other words, you wouldn't be ashamed to carry this around all day in your shirt pocket, strong clip keeping it tight and ready against your chest, like a gunslinger suspecting an ambush. The pen is just there, as though the only thing it has to say is "Aw shucks, now. I'm a pen, not a Benz. I'm just trying to be useful, so I'm here if you need me. If not, that's cool too."

What an awesome writing implement. If only there were some way to blog by way of handwriting all the entries on paper. I guess, technology-wise, we're not quite there yet.