Writes to Life
I used to sell them with pride and joy. I used to envy the customers who could afford the deluxe models. In the stationery store where I worked before my hands were speckled with liver spots, we displayed fountain pens, priced from nine ninety-five to eight-hundred dollars, on satin lined shelves under a glass counter. As the prices varied so did the customers.
Students didn’t care about fit or nib. They usually selected a mandarin-orange plastic casing with a cheap steal nib and matched it with a box of purple or green ink cartridges.
Artists and writers, recognizable by their attire, were a different lot. They insisted on testing many pens in various price ranges while chatting in great length about their projects they were working on. After considerable time had passed, they gave me a reverie smile, "Thank you. I’ll think about it."
I particularly liked serving the eager, well-dressed executive who, I assumed, came straight from his board meeting, where he had been the recipient of a promotion.....