Nobody makes one of my favorite things anymore. In a mid nineties corporate takeover that rocked the foundation of my world, Bic swallowed up Sheaffer and decided to stop production of their inexpensive and glorious fountain pens.
All through college and my early twenties I could walk into any drugstore and purchase a jewel toned plastic Sheaffer fountain pen, along with my choice of ink color. I wrote in black. The pens leaked all over my fingers and my classmates thought I was a car mechanic. But I wasn't a car mechanic I was a writer. I was a writer for twenty-one years before I had a word processor and fountain pens let me write as fast as I thought.
No other pens are as good. Ball point pens are a tragedy for a left handed person anyway because the side of my hand smears the words across the page right after I write them. Besides that ball point pens are the equivalent of slow walkers that are in your way on the sidewalk or in the mall when you are trying to go someplace. They gum up the works.
Gel pens are okay but they lack the gravitas of the fountain pen. They aren't heavy enough in the hand. Also sometimes the ink gets stuck and they start skipping like a cell phone with a bad connection.
Nobody suggest to me that I just go out and buy a different kind of fountain pen because I tried that. Other fountain pens are expensive and they break after a day. My Sheaffers lasted months. They let me write without getting tired. They let me write without ceasing.
I went on Ebay last night and found a selection of four brand new ones, bidding starting at $22.99. They used to be a dollar fifty apiece and you could just buy them when you felt like it.
Sometimes modern times make me mad. I love my Mac and my ipod and no shoulder pads in my clothes, but can't I have my Sheaffer fountain pens too? They were awesome.
I have one Sheaffer fountain pen left. I keep buying the ink for it, praying that it will last. This pen and I are lone companions in an apocalypse of slow and stupid writing instruments, one another's last hope for redemption.
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