The Pen

The other day one of my seventh graders asked me why teachers are so weird about their pens. That was an easy question to answer: I have a lot of papers to grade and I like to have just the right pen to make it easier. One that glides and lets me loop with abandon. Plus, my students steal ten to twenty of my lesser writing utensils daily, so there is always one really good pen that I am very particular about keeping track of.

Wanting to write something down at my language arts meeting today, I realized that my newly purchased perfect pen was missing. Immediately, I noticed that the teacher next to me was using it. "Um. You have my pen, I think."

I said, I think, but I knew it was mine, could identify it in a line up if necessary. "Oh, this was clipped to my stuff," she replied. "This one must be yours."

Oh no she didn't.

Sure, the pen she offered up was exactly the same color and model as my own, easy to mistake to the undiscerning eye, but if she had looked closely, not only would she notice that her pen, right next to her highlighter, was positioned such that I couldn't have placed it there. Plus, she would see that the pen she was holding had far more ink in it and was clearly owned by someone who had purchased it only two days before. Moreover, she would see that the pen she offered to me as my own (although it clearly was not) was bespeckled with glitter -- AND of the two of us, I am certain to lead the more glitter-free lifestyle. How hard was this to see?

"Oh. . .um. . .thanks," I answered and took the WRONG pen. Then, I spent the last ten minutes of our meeting contemplating how idiotic I would sound backtracking. "Yeah. So. Remember the pen mix up. It turns out that I really am sure that that one is mine. You see, I just bought it and it has a lot more ink than this one. And you see this silver stuff here . . . mine didn't have that. So. You see. Honest mistake. No harm done."

Except that the harm done would be that I sounded like a TOTAL freak obsessed about a mere pen. Which, thank you, I am. Instead, I said nothing and doodled flowers with the second-rate pen just to see if it worked.