sam and the city

I should be in sales

Good day faithful reader. At the world famous Blue Anchor Pub, as with most other places that I've ever worked there seems to be a constant shortage of pens. We've placed a pen holder centrally so that any pens that we find can go in there, but it seems that no matter what strategies we put in place to keep the pens together in a specific location, whenever you're looking for one there are none to be found. What's more, even if we do manage to maintain a certain level of pens for a certain amount of time, it's never the same ones. One day you may have 2 Bics, a multicolour and something else and the next day the only remaining will be one of the Bics, while the other three have disappear to be replaced by three others that have miraculously appeared out of nowhere! Just to increase your frustration, one day you'll be wandering around and there will be multicolour sitting right there on the bench, likes he's been there the whole time just waiting to be noticed!

On the topic of lost pens, its always amazes how much stress builds up inside me, and presumably this happens to other people, when I can't find a pen. I run around lifting up random objects in the vain hope that there will be a pen hiding under there. Pens are just one of those items that are so common that you feel like you could hacking your way through the Amazon, need a pen, and look and find one wedged between the fork of a tree. It's probably because of this that we get so concerned when we can't find one. So concerned that we'll sell our souls to get our hands on one. It's surprising therefore that stationery stores don't sell pens at a much higher price than they do. Think about it, when it the only time you actually go out to buy a pen other than when you're absolutely desperate and every other option has been tried. Of course anyone who has any idea about economics would realise that the reason for this is that pens are relatively cheap to make (I would imagine anyway) and if a single company tried to raise it price/profits that much then someone else would simple come in and undercut them. If only Bic and the other pen companies could collude then I'm sure that they could take control of the world very quickly!

On the subject of pens, what's up with blue pens? If you follow the writing history of mankind from the earliest texts right up until now, what colour is everything written in? That's right, black. Try your hardest and you'll struggle to find "official" texts written in anything other than black. However, when it comes to jotting down a note blue is as popular if not more so than black! I seem to remember when I was learning to write in school we were forced to use blue pens! I don't have any answers to this conundrum, I just thought that it was interesting.

posted by sam @ 11:41 am