* * * So, my favorite kind of pen ever is the Bic Clic Stic pen – NOT the Bic Stic, but the Bic CLIC Stic so that you don’t have to fool around with caps – and they’re hard as hell to find. I mean, Staples does carry them, but they carry the kind with the soft part where your fingers go so that you don’t end up with a permanent indention in your finger and I just can’t stand the pens with the soft part, they drive me nuts. You can find the Bic Clic Stic online, but they only seem to be available at promotional places, where you have pens personalized and then give them away to promote your company or cause. And while I think it would be cool to have a bunch of yellow pens with “Meh!” on them in black letters to send out to y’all and keep a bunch for me, you have to order at least 150 pens at most of those places, at 90 cents apiece, and can you imagine the speed at which Fred would kill me if I did something like that? So, no. No yellow pens with “Meh!” on them in black ink for us, folks. But I do keep my eyes peeled when I’m at the doctor’s office, because where do doctor’s offices get their pens? That’s right, from drug reps. And where do drug reps get their pens? That’s right, from companies that specialize in promotional items. Thus when I’m at the doctor’s office, I check out the pens they have sitting out in cups for patients to use to fill out forms or write checks or whatever. If there’s a Bic Clic Stic in that cup I so-very-casually reach out and grab it, then write out the check and when I’m done writing out the check I rip the check out of the checkbook and so-very-casually stick the pen in my wallet and put the whole kit and caboodle in my purse. And I do it while looking so very absentminded that if the front-desk/ receptionist chick were to say “Uh, that’s OUR pen, you sticky-fingered whore!”, I could easily put on a fake embarrassed face and say “Oh goodness, I’m so sorry!”, pull it out of my purse, and put it back in my cup. But that has never happened, and you know why? Because the people who work at the doctor’s office don’t give a good goddamn that I have taken their purple-and-white Levaquin� pen (for instance), because they have 63,000 other pens stuck away for the moment when someone says “Hey, the pen cup is empty! Hand me some pens, would you?”, and they fill the pen cup up and say to each other “I sure wish the patients would steal pens at a quicker pace, because we’re running out of room. Damn drug reps!” So anyway, a few weeks ago I went to the doctor’s office, and while I was there, I spotted a Bic Clic Stic pen, and I stole it – that’s right, folks, I plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face STOLE IT, and I should be locked up and the key should be tossed right OUT the damn window! – and then when I had to go back a few days later I spotted ANOTHER Bic Clic Stic pen, and I STOLE THAT ONE TOO, and the other night when Fred and I were laying in bed, I TOLD him that I had stolen the pens, and he was as horrified as if I had suggested that he stay up until 10:00. He was HORRIFIED, he was AGHAST, he could not believe that I would have the utter gall to STEAL a cheap plastic PEN from his beloved Dr. Judy, and none of my insistences that it was OKAY, that they EXPECTED people to steal pens, and that the doctor’s office didn’t PAY for the damn pens anyway, nothing I could say soothed his horror. I half-expected to wake up the next morning to find him gone, the hangers on his side of the closet swinging empty, but he seems to have repressed the horror of finding out that his wife STEALS cheap pens, so y’all don’t remind him, okay?
Ever since I bought this pillow, Miz Poo spends ALL day curled up on it, occasionally coming over to settle down between me and the keyboard to get a belly rub, then she goes back to her pillow. Have I mentioned that I LURVE this kitty?