Penance!

Have you ever noticed that most folks have a cup on top of their desk or workspace? Oh, not the coffee cup that proclaims you to be the world’s greatest mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, butcher, baker, or candle stick maker. No, I’m talking about the cup that is full of pens and pencils.

Everyone seems to have one.  It may be made of ceramic as a reminder of some adventure into a pottery class from long ago. It may be one of those now stylish silver or black mess cups that you can buy at the office products store. It may in fact be yet another coffee cup with some office witticism such as “We Guarantee -Fast Service- No Matter How Long It Takes,” a souvenir from a vacation, or swag from some “business” trip.

I’m not going to talk about those wire mess cups. They are generally filled with neatly arranged identical pens bedazzled with a sales product or corporate logo. They are practical but boring. They tell us nothing of the soul or the ethics of the person occupying the workspace.

I want to talk about those other cups. You know the ones with the pens that were purloined from hotel room and front desks, doctor’s offices, bank lobbies, seminars, and even other people. It seems that there is a never-ending source of pens that become available to the average person. Intentional or not these pens wind up in our homes or offices in one of those cups on our desk. I am constantly surprised that office supply stores invariably carry a large selection of new pens on their selves and in their catalogues. Who in their right mind would buy them?

I have two issues with these pen muggings. First, whenever you actually grab a pen out of the cup it invariably fails to work. Perhaps it has been there too long or the last time you tried it and it failed you put it back in the cup as you grabbed another pen. You know the process. Select a pen from the cup. The pen doesn’t work. Find a piece of scratch paper. Scribble madly until you realize this is never going to work. Frustrated you slam the pen back into the cup as you grab another pen. Repeat the process.

Second, have you ever peered into the bottom of one of those cups after they’ve been in service for a couple of years? On the rare occasion that you clean your desk top and do more that move the cup off and back onto the desk or when you are moving to a new office – hopefully not out the door – you will remove the pens. Then you see it. The sea of blue/black goo that has formed on the bottom of the cup. Perhaps like fly paper is has ensnared a dust bunny or two. If you take a piece of paper towel to the cup you will discover that this goo is tougher than you think as a scrap of the paper towel is now stuck to the bottom of the cup. You try soap and water but discover that is not sufficient to remove the gunk. Sadly, for many, the shear time and energy required to clean the cup means it is time discard the current cup and start all over again and build a new penitentiary.