BS: Where do all the pens go?

Subject: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 05:02 PM

Am I the only one, that buys loads of pens, but when I want to use one, I can never find them.

My wife and 2 daughters swear blind they don't have them.

I get phone calls and I know I had a pen on my desk the day before, but not when the phone goes.

Where the bloody hell do they go to?

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: GUEST,John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 05:16 PM

There's a planet where all biros go to hide. They slip through a hole in the space time continuum.
Ask Douglas Adams

" The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a very unevenly edited book and contains many passages that simply seemed to its editors like a good idea at the time.
    One of these (the one Arthur now came across) supposedly relates the experiences of one Veet Voojagig, a quiet young student at the University of Maximegalon, who pursued a brilliant academic career studying ancient philology, transformational ethics and the wave harmonic theory of historical perception, and then, after a night of drinking Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters with Zaphod Beeblebrox, became increasingly obsessed with the problem of what had happened to all the biros he'd bought over the past few years.
    There followed a long period of painstaking research during which he visited all the major centres of biro loss throughout the galaxy and eventually came up with a quaint little theory which quite caught the public imagination at the time. Somewhere in the cosmos, he said, along with all the planets inhabited by humanoids, reptiloids, fishoids, walking treeoids and superintelligent shades of the colour blue, there was also a planet entirely given over to biro life forms. And it was to this planet that unattended biros would make their way, slipping away quietly through wormholes in space to a world where they knew they could enjoy a uniquely biroid lifestyle, responding to highly biro-oriented stimuli, and generally leading the biro equivalent of the good life.
    And as theories go this was all very fine and pleasant until Veet Voojagig suddenly claimed to have found this planet, and to have worked there for a while driving a limousine for a family of cheap green retractables, whereupon he was taken away, locked up, wrote a book, and was finally sent into tax exile, which is the usual fate reserved for those who are determined to make a fool of themselves in public.
    When one day an expedition was sent to the spatial coordinates that Voojagig had claimed for this planet they discovered only a small asteroid inhabited by a solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying.
    There did, however, remain the question of both the mysterious 60,000 Altairan dollars paid yearly into his Brantisvogan bank account, and of course Zaphod Beeblebrox's highly profitable second-hand biro business.
-- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 05:16 PM

The Flying Spaghetti Monster eats them...

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 05:20 PM

they are in my husband's pocket, all of them, always, in his pocket.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 05:24 PM

Now, what would my pens be doing in your husband's pocket, VaTam? And "all of them"? How big is this pocket anyhow?

❤Michael❤

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 05:28 PM

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 05:42 PM

I have a different, though related, puzzlement:

I don't buy large numbers of pens. In fact I seldom buy any. But I find that I have a bunch of pens around--at the computer, in my pocket, on the passthrough from the kitchen to the breakfast nook. But this population is continually changing: As soon as I realize that the one I just picked up is really comfortable, and/or writes very smoothly, and/or has a good-looking writing line, it will disappear, probably to the same place as the pens from Arthur_itus' house. But more mysteriously will appear.

Go figure.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 06:08 PM

where does all the penis go?

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 06:09 PM

oooh you dirty devil VT.

I could answer that, but it would be too crude :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 06:18 PM

Don't know about anyone else's pens. I certainly cannot speak for ALL pens. MY pen....is in my pocket, where it always is unless it is in my hand when I am writing. It is a fountain pen, and I do not let anyone else use it. So I don't lose it. My penis: in my pants, last time I looked, which come to think of it, has been a while...


Saul

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 06:20 PM

I always used fountain pens, as my writing looks like a doctors and the FP helps me to make my text more readable.

Even they disappear!

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: ranger1
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 06:54 PM

Cats steal them. Even if you don't have a cat, they still manage to teleport into your abode and carry off all of your writing implements. I think they then throw them into a black hole somewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: lefthanded guitar
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 07:10 PM

That's true. I used to have cats and I don't have any now, but they are still stealing the pens.

There is only ONE way to find all the pens you've lost. You've got to move. You've got to pack up everything you own, throw it in a truck and move cross town, if not halfway cross the country. Before you leave, when you look on the floor, or peer into the crevasses of the carpet, you will see all the pens you've lost over the years.

They'll be oodles.

Some people think this may not enough reason for such a drastic life change as moving out of your home; but if you wanna find those pens, that's the only way to do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Janie
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 07:16 PM

Oops.

Bigger question for this notorious pen thief. I walk off with pens, and walk off without pens in equal measure. The law of averages should dictate that pens would remain evenly distributed under those circumstances.

The law of averages is broken.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: gnu
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 07:20 PM

Saul... "My penis: in my pants, last time I looked, which come to think of it, has been a while..."

You are supposed to drink lots of water for good health you know.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 09:30 PM

I also have a couple of nice fountain pens and I know where they are. Ball point pens on the other hand tend to vanish through the same miniature Hawking black holes that suck in odd socks.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Bert
Date: 24 Mar 11 - 09:57 PM

They come here, but on their journey they lose all of their ink.

That is why I have loads of pens but NONE of them work with the exception of the one that you choose for an important meeting. That one works when you try it out but stops working after the third word when you are with a client.

(My penis works though)

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 01:07 AM

"Pens belong to the universe" said a famous Australian folkie as he used my pen to autograph a CD.

They do not, sez I grabbing it back & deciding to also carry a cheap pen as well as my good pen, & only offer the cheapie to folks needing to write something.

On the other hand, umbrella do belong to the universe. I was once given a ride to a bus stop & found a perfectly rolled black one in the gutter. I used it until it left go it's next user.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 01:15 AM

I forgot to mention the red pens in my one-person library that never left to back cupboard, or the enquiry phone. Maybe the universe doesn't like red ink.

The only other pens that stayed with the phone were those I taped to a piece of string & attached to the phone!

I remember shaking my head watching a colleague as she wrote BOOKSHOP in small letters on pieces of paper & taped these labels to a few pens. It wasn't long before they disappeared, some to colleagues desks, others journeyed out into the universe.

Some of our customers left their pens with us, but never as many, tho some of these pens were very expensive. I have to pay almost $10 to get a refill for the one I keep in my wallet! Another pen was sterling silver.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: J-boy
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 01:21 AM

Oh when will they ever learn?

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 02:53 AM

Can't speak for the pens. But the pencils go to Pencilvania.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 03:00 AM

I just checked, and my pen is in my pocket, where I've kept it since I got it as a "freebie" at a company Xmas party in 1965. (In the pocket of whatever shirt I have on. I have changed shirts a couple of times.)

I also have several mechanical pencils, all in good working order, some of which I have used with fair regularity since ca. 1954. (One 9H, 1956, has the original lead in it. A 9H lead doesn't wear down very fast.)

Inspection shows that my pen writes just as it did yesterday.

On the other hand, when one lives with a proofer/editor, only RED pens always disappear within 42.11 seconds of being removed from the package. "She" claims never to have had one, and always to need one; but she's never able to find the shelf where the packages are kept in order that she may get her own whenever a need arises - or perhaps she hasn't learned how to open the box and only pretends that she needs me to get her another one.

Blue pens are relatively safe, as tradition demands that the "blue edits" be done with a pencil. I therefor avoid ever having a blue pencil in my possesion, as I know I would feel great sorrow if said pencil mysteriously disappeared in imitation of all my many red pens. Having lost so many red pens, their frivolous disappearnces have caused me to lose the respect in which I held them many years ago, so the loss is expected and borne with only brief depression meriting a mere "spot of the Jack" in consolation when another takes off.

And yes, another of my red pens left me two days ago and hasn't been seen since. If I had a desk with a drawer I'd move Jack to the drawer to keep him handy. Maybe I'll just stuff him under the table by my chair.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 03:00 AM

Pens go to Penn State, an Institution of Higher Learning.
Ask Max. He's there.

Come to think of it, maybe they go to the State Pen. I'm not sure now - I'm dyslexic at times.

-Joe-

...of course, there's always this possibility on the other shore.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 03:13 AM

Maybe they have all disappeared to Pen-ny Lane!

I managed to find one, but it wasn't working. So I threw it away, so that whoever took it from me in the first place, can't use it again. That's got em.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 04:53 AM

I carry a 'Space Pen' by Fisher..EVERYWHERE!. They can write underwater, up-side down, on glass, through butter, and even in space. It's what the astronauts take up with them. They take apart, and are small to carry, and fit easily in your jeans pocket, and are VERY durable. Had mine for YEARS!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 05:00 AM

Oh, I forgot to mention, I call it, 'My ball point sword'.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 05:04 AM

"Is that a pen in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?" ;0)

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Tangledwood
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 05:05 AM

Where do all the pens go?



They just get written off.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 05:17 AM

I expect there is a pen pen in Pentonville...

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 10:14 AM

Interesting note: Stephen Colbert has had the same pen for as long as I have been watching him. Jon Stewart uses whatever generic stick pen is lying around.

Saul

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Becca72
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 10:47 AM

I agree with Ranger1. The pens in my house are stolen by cats. Mine, being very clever boys, usually stuff them under the vacuum cleaner; I believe this is an attempt to "kill" said vacuum monster...

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: IvanB
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 09:27 PM

Actually they metamorphose into wire clothes hangers and overpopulate your closets.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Bert
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 11:02 PM

They pair up with lighters and run off to Gretna Green.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Nancy King
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 11:55 PM

Yup, Ranger1 and Becca72 are right. It's cats. Both my previous cat and my current kitten have pen (and pencil) fetishes. On one rare occasion when I was cleaning up and actually lifted up the couch cushions, I found no less than 15 pens and pencils stashed there. Bonanza! Just yesterday my kitty was fussing around the refrigerator, obviously trying to reach something underneath. I got a yardstick and fished out 3 pens, 2 pencils, a twist-tie, and an odd plastic thing I'd given him to play with. Too bad he won't be satisfied with just the old non-working pens...

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: gecko
Date: 26 Mar 11 - 12:22 AM

If anyone manages to discover the new abode of the missing pens, perhaps they could also have a look round for odd socks.....?

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 26 Mar 11 - 12:55 AM

I never have any trouble finding a pen. It's finding a pen that works that's the issue. I usually have to try four in order to find one that works. I've tried throwing out the ones that don't work, but it doesn't help. There seems to be a cosmic law which states that 75% of the pens in my house won't work. If I throw the bad ones out, good ones simply die to take their place.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: JHW
Date: 26 Mar 11 - 06:04 AM

Reading the thread I would have posted HHGTTG Ch33 Vs13-31 but there it is. In my household of five plus me there were never any pens by the phone. I thought it a good idea to keep one there but kids think differently. The kids though, like the pens, all disappeared and I no longer have that problem though today's kids I guess wouldn't be seen dead with a pen.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 26 Mar 11 - 11:58 AM

Here in Chester, they pop across the Welsh border to Penyffordd (the end of the road) or Penymynydd (the end of the mountain, but nobody's managed to find the mountain).

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Mar 11 - 12:45 PM

When I was regularly making wooden pens, they went to customers!

If they are really distinctive, no one dares walk off with them. I have kept several for myself, and I DO always have a pen.

And if they are Ivory, you can't afford them anyway.

I made several sets for a guy who uses old ivory from Mammoth & such. I wonder what he charged people for them...

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: gnu
Date: 26 Mar 11 - 03:53 PM

Becca... vaccum theory... hahahahahaa.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: JennieG
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 01:08 AM

Pens go to the penitentiary!

Sorry about that......

Several years ago I bought a small pack of flower-headed pins (a special pin used by folkses like myself who sew and quilt), took them home, put them somewhere safe.....and have never seen them again. Even when we packed up the whole house last year and moved they didn't come to light.

So not only pens disappear, pins disappear too.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 02:38 AM

Ah ~ "somewhere safe", eh Jennie. Whenever my first wife exclaimed in desperation, "Oh where is the ...?", I would reply "In a safe place, my dear".

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Wolfhound person
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 06:09 AM

Does anyone else have a "thereitis"?

As in "Where's the...... there it is"

I have lots of them, in all shapes and sizes: I use them for whatever I was doing 5 minutes previously, before the mailman called, the phone rang, or the dog wanted out.

Paws

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 11:54 AM

Nobody lives on the 60 acre plot which adjoins my own property on the east side, but someone raised pigs back there about forty years ago. When we moved out here, about twenty years ago, the pig pens were still very much in evidence. But, over the years, the barbed wire has rusted away and the wooden posts and rails have pretty much rotted. So, where do all the pens go? They rot away.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon, visiting La Crosse
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 12:03 PM

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.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 01:56 PM

Have you tried keeping them in some kind of a pen, Arthur?

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 01:59 PM

Walkabout with my Pen

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 02:31 PM

I am on about Biro's WV. Maybe it should have said Biro's :-)

Sheep go in pens LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 02:47 PM

Some of my pupils used to chew their pens (my boring lessons perhaps?) on and on, until the ink tube burst and out they'd come to my desk, tongues blue like a chow dog. I lost many pens that way!

Subject: RE: BS: Where do all the pens go?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 02:48 PM

Oh...burrowing biros..?