10/10/2025
Each year after an overstimulating Christmas and New Year’s, and before the intolerable excitement of summer festivities, I choose an arbitrary weekday to celebrate Pen Day.
This is the day that I test every pen in my house, to see if it still writes to my tolerably loose standards.
I am very methodical. I use a fresh sheet of paper for each room whose pens I survey. I give each pen a fair chance. Three inky flourishes for each before I pronounce judgement, without benefit of appeal.
For pens that fail the test, if they are of sentimental or other value, I will salvage or repair them. Some cherished few, which cannot be resurrected, are placed in a drawer with some odds, ends and old notes (which I am also fond of), for their well-earned rest. Sadly, many more are disposed of in a respectful but final manner.
I always look forward to Pen Day. It takes up all of the daytime and most of the evening. This is because it demands thoroughness, but also because I enjoy meeting with my old, trusty writing partners.
Some pens were gifts, or complimentary mementos. Some were foisted on me by circumstance, or by pushy individuals at school or dull work conferences, but that I chose to rescue.
A few are rumored to have been liberated from hostile parties, but this cannot be proven.
Some emit a blue light. Some have written down large and small secrets. Others have secret compartments. Some are made of rare or industrial metals. Some are suitable for the art of self-defense (with tungsten carbide tips). A handful are even capable of small repairs, by means of tools cleverly hidden in their cylinders.
My favorite pens have been used to outline and write drafts of novels of various genres and quality, and have been regenerated more times than The Doctor, whose conveyance you may see in the photo. (Which also shows pens from one corner of my cluttered desk, mid-testing.)
The tranquil nostalgia of Pen Day is invariably followed by Ink Day, where I seek refills for the pens to be restored to service. In this manner, I learned the origin of my favorite descendant of quills, the Italian-made Lalex engineer’s pen that I hold in the picture. I was given it forty years ago and it is no longer made, so it took ages to find an approximate refill. This required locating a German ink tube with an appropriate 0.7 mm point for use with a spring-stop, and excising 7 mm of it to make it fit for purpose. In the end, it was an elegant solution.
Happy Pen Day to you all.
Male, 55, size 14 U.S., who enjoys repeatedly writing “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”, in longhand.
