Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Pen-sion
I carry a Sheaffer pen to work. It's probably a stupid thing to do since experience in the UK taught me that in hospitals, pens are predestined to wind up in someone else's pocket - you think it's the nurses and doctors wot are promiscuous, think again. It's the pens and the tourniquets.
The Sheaffer is kinda battered now and some of the gold-leaf is coming off. It's my dad's; the first day I went to work I asked him if he had a nice pen I could borrow since, well, I'm spoilt and used to using reassuringly heavy pens at work that can also double as a self-defence tool if need be. My dad whipped out a pen and gave it to me.
It brings back memories of another lifetime.
*****
Once upon a time there was a boy who wanted to buy one of his friends a pen. Dressed in his poorly-fitting camo uniform, he circled the sales counter somewhere in Raffles City rather warily, peering at the expensive Wasserman / Parker / Brand-named pens on display and being thoroughly ignored by the sales assistant. Obviously those lessons about camo breaking up artificial lines and blending in with any landscape - even concrete! - held true here as well.
And then he saw it, lying alongside it's pencil partner, gold and slender and slightly understated in a glass case, and he knew he had to get it for her.
How much does that cost, he asked, prepared to pay the earth for this... perfect... present.
His jaw dropped as he found out that he'd have to pay the sky as well. One whole month's salary! His mind whirled, and so did the shop assistant, back towards... somewhere more important and interesting and leaving him in a lurch.
It took him all the way to the MRT train to make up his mind - as the doors slid shut with a hiss, he knew. He got on the next train back towards town, and when he whipped out his card to actually pay for it the salesgirl almost keeled over in shock.
Anyway, that pen represented a Good doctor to me; it was the pen I associated with my father.
*****
He never did tell Her why he bought Her that particular pen.
The Sheaffer is kinda battered now and some of the gold-leaf is coming off. It's my dad's; the first day I went to work I asked him if he had a nice pen I could borrow since, well, I'm spoilt and used to using reassuringly heavy pens at work that can also double as a self-defence tool if need be. My dad whipped out a pen and gave it to me.
It brings back memories of another lifetime.
*****
Once upon a time there was a boy who wanted to buy one of his friends a pen. Dressed in his poorly-fitting camo uniform, he circled the sales counter somewhere in Raffles City rather warily, peering at the expensive Wasserman / Parker / Brand-named pens on display and being thoroughly ignored by the sales assistant. Obviously those lessons about camo breaking up artificial lines and blending in with any landscape - even concrete! - held true here as well.
And then he saw it, lying alongside it's pencil partner, gold and slender and slightly understated in a glass case, and he knew he had to get it for her.
How much does that cost, he asked, prepared to pay the earth for this... perfect... present.
His jaw dropped as he found out that he'd have to pay the sky as well. One whole month's salary! His mind whirled, and so did the shop assistant, back towards... somewhere more important and interesting and leaving him in a lurch.
It took him all the way to the MRT train to make up his mind - as the doors slid shut with a hiss, he knew. He got on the next train back towards town, and when he whipped out his card to actually pay for it the salesgirl almost keeled over in shock.
Anyway, that pen represented a Good doctor to me; it was the pen I associated with my father.
*****
He never did tell Her why he bought Her that particular pen.
