Write Said Fred

I found myself in an unusual position recently.  Keeping my advanced age in mind, just standing up often leads to me being in an unusual position, but that’s beside the point.

No….it’s like this: I needed a pen, and couldn’t find one.  When one purports to be in the promotional products industry, the last thing one would need is a pen.  And yet, there was none to be had. In our industry, this is tantamount to treason.

Think about this for a moment: how many trade shows have I attended over the years…either as an exhibitor or an attendee…where I would (1) receive a pen with registration, or (B) walk past a display where they had samples for the taking?  If it was a friend’s display, I might take a few. If it was a real friend’s display, I would leave alone the ones that said “Display only…please don’t steal”.  Really really good friends would often send me a box of pens with my name and/or logo imprinted.

It is safe to say that I amassed a healthy collection of pens.  On top of that, pause and remember the Mike you used to know, jet-setting around the globe as a platinum-level traveler, staying in a variety of top-quality hotels where they had a pen on the night table and (brace yourself for this, friends) another on the desk!  These were class joints!

Not that I’ve ever had a problem not staying focused but I’m going to sidebar here for a moment.  I remember writing a column for what was then Identity Marketing magazine about how every pen I took from a hotel was good for our industry overall, as this practice would hasten many re-orders.  Hey…I was just doing my part. For the record, I didn’t need or keep all of the pens I took. Most of them got donated to a charitable pen drive of which I was part…giving them to area schools more in need of them than I.

So I had many of those pens, on top of those I’d gotten at shows.  Additionally, I still had many from my days as National Sales Manager of a really cheap pen company.  As I know I have written before, I don’t mean that this was a company that sold inexpensive writing instruments.  This was simply a cheap company who manufactured pens. Yes, the pens were cheap, too, but that’s neither here nor there.  For the record, that company is now neither here nor there also.

I know that, somewhere in this house, there must be dozens of pens sitting in a box that has yet to be unpacked from when we first moved away three years ago.  I could start rummaging through the basement in order to find this collection, or I could (gasp) go and actually purchase one or a pack of five if I’m really feeling reckless.

I honestly don’t know the last time I bought a pen.  

No…this column is not a desperate plea for writing instruments.  It’s probably a good thing that not many people have my new address…there are some genuinely good people out there who would have a carton sitting on my doorstep tomorrow.  Maybe even one that had pens in it.

Bringing this full circle: I found one.  I didn’t have to dig as deeply as I’d feared.  A relic from yet another company that’s no longer in business.  Their business model might have been awful, but they made a pen that held up nicely!