My MontBlanc pen...

Several years ago (1991-1992?), I worked for a company which ran a small ad in the back of Byte Magazine. It was my job to create the copy and arrange for the advertising. We were one of Byte's smallest accounts, but they treated us well.

At the end of that year, our account executive sent me a MontBlanc pen as a gift of appreciation. For a while, I bragged about it. Then I tended to forget I had it. I didn't want to carry it, because I was sure that I would lose it. It was kept in the case it came in. For years, I kept it hidden.

I never knew what I would use it for, until about 8 years ago. I was about to buy a house in October of 1997. I decided I would use it to sign my name on the numerous documents at the closing. A week before the closing, I made sure that it worked.

On the day of the closing, I pulled the case out and put it on the conference table. At the time that they put the first document in front of me, I smiled. I reached out and opened the case. I removed the pen and just as I was about to put it to paper to sign my name, the title agent said "That pen doesn't write in black, does it ?". It did and I told her that. She explained that these were legal documents and that they needed to be signed in blue, so that copies would be obvious as copies. She handed me a Bic pen with her company's name on it and I signed everything with that Bic.

I hope that, someday, I will be able to live up to such a fine writing instrument.