Pluggers by Rick McKee for November 20, 2023

The rest are ‘loaners’ for people who keep ‘borrowing’ and never returning one’s pens.

He bearly a professor eh.

… why?

We had three plastic cups full in the cabinet. Went through them and now there’s only two.

They are like colorful honor patches on a general’s dress uniform.

My wife has several cups full of markers, pens, and pencils on her desk. I do a slow burn every time I try to find one that can write. Even the pencils have broken tips.

I only carry one pen . The thing that I get a kick out of is when someone asks me why I carry a pen …. Then seconds later asks to borrow it ;-)

I always carry two pens, because I learned two lessons in Boy Scouts and working in the computer industry: “Be Prepared” and “Redundancy”.

I not only carry a pen that writes, I also carry a stylus. It makes it safer to use filthy public keypads, like at the grocery store or service station, for example. The stylus is also helpful for when my fat fingers have trouble tapping in the right spots while navigating menus of the apps on my phone.

All of them neatly placed in a pocket protector with some store or business advertised on the flap that has long been out of business.

Sure, Pluggers can be Nerds, too!

This Plugger is retired so the last time I had a pen in my pocket is the last day I worked.

I have been using the same ink pen for years. Use a refill when ever it runs out. On my desk I have one Sharpie Magnum. That’s it for me.

If you’re REALLY a Plugger, at least one of those pens leaks and leaves a big blue stain right under that shirt pocket.

Pens are like the rings on a tree, you can count them to see how old it is. For pluggers it’s one pen every 2 years, makes it easy calculate when he became a plugger.

I have a cup of pens on my desk/table.

A plugger knows enough to pick up a pen from every doctor’s office he or she visits. This month alone we’ve collected 26 new ones [13 drs offices X 2 patients] and still have 5 offices to hit before November ends.

And ink stains on all the shirts from the pens that leaked.

You are a plugger only if all of them are free pens.

Every year our area businesses have an Expo and they all give out trinkets with the business name on them. Every year, my bride goes to it and every year she brings home enough pens to last for two years. We have three larger coffee grounds containers full. One is on the dining room table. She makes a seasonable centerpiece over the pens.

He’s lucky none of them are leaking. You think ball point pens don’t leak? After they go through the dryer all bets are off.

Am I the only one who grew up saying “pen” instead of “ink pen”? If it’s a common pen I’ve always assumed it uses ink.

I worked for the Army for nearly 30 years and during the first half of that, they issued “Army” ballpoint pens. Which we were supposed to use for business purposes only. Unfortunately, they didn’t provide refills and the pens seemed to be an off-size because common refills didn’t fit. Eventually, when we started using computers, they quit supplying the pens; but later, when I cleaned out my desk, the top [shallow] drawer was completely filled with dried pens.

now the question is; which pen works?

I usually only have 3 pens in my pocket and they “ALL” work (well last time I checked) ……… does that mean I’m only half a Plugger …….. :)

Not in my pocket. But between the desk and a side table, I have about a dozen old pens and one functional.

And I always forget to bring something to write on. :)

I carry a pen in my jeans pocket- a Space Pen! A real plugger would remember these small pens less than 4 inches long with cap on (easy to drop in a pocket) and just under 5.5 inches long when opened for use (a comfortable size to use). It is in silver in color and is rounded on both ends. It also can use refills (obviously). They will write at any angle as they do not gravity to feed the ink as they were made for NASA astronauts to be use in space.

As someone mentioned I carry a soft tip stylus in my pocket also. (As opposed to a hard pointy ended stylus such as Palm Pilots have.) I don’t always show up when using a finger on touch screens – don’t know why and it can cause trouble, so I carry this with me.

This is along with my wallet. Also my cell phone (too large and heavy to carry in pocket, but fit it in anyway – oh for my last cell phone to still be usable, why my 4G phone had to be gotten rid of along with 3G phones I don’t really understand – it does have a tendency to fall backwards over my small hands due its size and weight when I use it.)

My keys are in there also – when not working outside around our house I can remove the secondary part of the two part key ring and leave the garage, etc keys home – but even so it is heavy. Tiny bottle of hand sanitizer and tiny spray bottle of alcohol (since we had bed bugs) also in a pocket. If we are eating out – also my pill box. And with all this in my pockets and yet, the rear pockets are empty and are available for me to stuff with some plastic shopping bags (the ones which are being discontinued all over as they are “one time use”) since at the same time Covid started our state make them illegal to be handed out by businesses. (No one said it was illegal to use the ones one had.) My rear pockets can hold up to 3 of these bags each if they are folded correctly.

So why the heck does anyone need a pocketbook – have not carried one in years.

And none of them leak either.