Hold on ‘til I get a pen

Have you ever wondered where all the pens go? Well, ok maybe you are a super organised person and you have rows and rows of pens, blue, black, red and maybe even a surprise green ink one all lined up perfectly on a desk, but if you’re not, have you ever wondered where they all go?

At a guess I reckon there could be anywhere between 200-300 pens in my house at any one time, but that doesn’t mean I can lay my hands on one when I actually need it.

Usually of course it happens when I am on the phone.

“Okay, so the number you need to call is....” the person on the other side of the line says and immediately panic sets in.

“Ah, hold on there ‘til I get a pen,” I say, trying not to let my voice sound at all flustered.

You see experience has let me know that even though I confidently have said hold on until I get a pen, the reality is I’m more likely to find the winning numbers for the weekend lottery.

So I have to stall them.

“Ah, isn’t that typical, you find one and there is no ink,” I say.

That may or may not actually be a lie, but if you do happen to find one that has no ink you just waste time by making an old envelope into confetti by scratching so hard with the inkless pen that it cuts through the paper.

And so the frantic search goes on and the person on the other side just sits there chuckling to a rambling rant that you think you are thinking inside your head but are actually muttering just loud enough to hear.

“This is bloody typical I don’t know how many pens I have bought and where are they all now, I had one there yesterday I left it beside the phone, if I find out who took it away....blah, blah, blah and more ramblings along these lines.”

I’m convinced that there is a parallel universe out there somewhere full of odd socks and missing pens.

Not that such a theory is any use when it comes to actually needing one, so when that call does come and you need to write down that important name or number you often end up using anything you can get your hands on.

I’ve written numbers down using eyeliner pencil (not mine!), lipstick (not mine either!), colouring pencils (how come when you find one of them at a time like that it’s always just the yellow and light blue that are really hard to see?) and even once with my finger on the dirt on the back of my car.

To resolve the problem I’ve tried loads of solutions. I’ve put wee pots full of pens beside the phone and yet when that call comes they are always empty.

I’ve bought those wee phone scribbling pads with pens attached and somehow they’ve become unattached by the time that important call comes in.

So, completely frustrated by all of my efforts I finally came up with what I thought was a brilliant solution.

I just sellotaped a pen to the actual phone.

Now I can’t find the phone either...