I don't know why, but pens accumulate in my house. I swear I never steal pens, or absent-mindedly walk off with them, from other people's houses or offices. On the other hand, I never turn down a free pen. When I attend a trade show, and various businesses are giving away pens with their names on them, I take what I can get, even if I know I'll never do business with the advertiser. (But now that I'm retired, I probably won't be attending any more trade shows.)

Still, pens appear in my house and I have no idea where they come from. If I ask my wife, she doesn't know either.

Also, I'm reluctant to throw away a pen, even if it doesn't write very well. I guess that's another reason why they accumulate.

I have my own favorite kind of pen: a Pilot G-2 retractable gel ink rolling ball, with blue ink. They're reasonably cheap, around $2—so cheap that for a long time, I treated it as a disposable pen, until I found a place to buy refills. (Many stores sell the pens but not the refills.) A refill cost about half as much as a new pen.

I like gel pens because they make a strong sharp mark even with only a light touch. Disadvantages: if the paper ever gets wet, the ink will dissolve and maybe disappear. Also, if you write on glossy paper, it needs some time to dry, otherwise it will smear.

My lawyer said you should always sign important documents (contracts, wills, etc.) with blue ink, because it makes it easy to distinguish the original from a black-and-white photocopy. He says, for some purposes, it's important to have the original. Therefore he only uses pens with blue ink, because people often borrow his pens to sign documents.

So I guess the fact that, 95% of the time, I only use the pens that I buy, and not the free ones that show up spontaneously, is another reason why the free ones tend to accumulate and never get lost, used up, or thrown away.