Satire

A Note From Your Pen

I’ve been with you since the day I was given to you by your adoring parents, who assumed I would write your essays and research papers when you went to college. Instead, I was thrown into a jar with the rest of your discarded highlighters and the feeble Bic pens you found at the library over the years.

I was supposed to be the pen you cherished, but instead I was overlooked time and time again. I could have been the pen attached by a piece of string to the dorm room note pad. I should have been the pen you wrote your belated Christmas cards to, but no. I was slowly pushed to the back of the sippy cup you were given at your first freshers party that now holds your other writing accessories. Who needs that much Wite-Out?

For years, I waited for the chance to be used for my purpose. I wanted to write the first lines in your new spiral-bound notepad at your first lecture, but instead you took the blue pen, with no lid that leaked all over your favorite backpack.

Despite its hostility, the blue pen remained with you until you gave it to that guy you had sex with in your first freshman year. He wanted to write down song lyrics for his band and you handed him the leaky one. For that I’m thankful. It could have been me.

During your years at college and into med school, I waited, longing to be the next one to be used but I was always kicked to the curb by other, more favored utensils. Even when you wrote letters to your brother, telling him of your breakups, I sat and waited.

When you cleared out your room after finishing school, you tossed me into another box — a box! I lay there in wait, just hoping that one day you would find me again and I could show you the real power behind my fountain pen head.

Years passed and I lay there, in the box, waiting. I feared you’d forgotten me. It had been so long. I heard the conversations you had with your new boyfriend, Chad (he didn’t last long, did he?), who was always losing his pens. Not once did you offer him my use.

Then one day, you opened the box and pulled me out. You put me in the pocket of your white coat, and I gleamed with pride. You’d been waiting, as I had.

You had finished your years of medical training, of being knee-deep in patients’ fluids and of doing the grunt work and long hours. You had waited until you could call yourself a doctor, until you could wear the white coat and train medical students to do the grunt work for you. You waited until you were the one who the nurses needed to sign paperwork, and instead of pulling out a plain old Bic ballpoint, you plucked me. Your most treasured possession.

Too bad my ink dried up. Now you have no choice but to use that gnarly Bic.