I’ve filled my fountain pen (a Pilot Metropolitan, it’s Japanese—it’s from Japan) in many strange places.
I’ve filled it on the subway (shoutout to the 2 and 5 trains), I’ve filled it in Panera Bread (many, many times), and I’ve filled it while stopped at a red light.
There’s one place, however, that even I wouldn’t DARE to fill up my fountain pen: the library.
Here’s the thing—filling up a fountain pen is a power move. When you fill up a fountain pen (especially a Pilot Metropolitan), you’re basically telling all the BIC Ballpoint Pen users around you, “Hey, look! My pen ran out of ink, but it’s so expensive that I get to fill it up again, and again, infinity. I can’t just go throwing a fancy pen like this in the trash can. You know why? Because I write with luxury…not trash.”
It might seem like you’re just filling up a pen, but you’re really making a bold statement (and a statement that I fully support you in—REPRESENT!)
But Mike, why would you feel comfortable filling up your fountain pen while on the subway, in Panera, and while driving? It seems like the library is the ONLY place you mentioned that should actually appropriate for such an activity.
You’re right and you’re wrong. You’re right because, let’s face it, of all the places I mentioned, a library SEEMS like the most likely place to use a fountain pen, and therefore SHOULD BE the most likely place to fill a fountain pen in public.
That being said, when you fill up a fountain pen in the library, everybody around you WILL envy you.
On the contrary, when you fill up a fountain pen on the 2/5 train, or in Panera, everybody around you is too baffled to comprehend exactly what they’re witnessing, so rather than feeling any strong emotion towards you, such as envy/jealousy/hatred, their preoccupation with processing the strangeness of what you’re doing prevents them from attacking you.
The more bizarre the place that you fill your pen, the stranger, and less pretentious, you’ll appear.
Until next time,
Michael J. Erickson, CEO & Co-Founder
