The Red Pen

Keyboards are more important today than any pen. The shelf we have at work has notepads and pens available on it, but they time interval we allow between purchases does not keep us in proper black and blue pens. By the time people start to get worried enough to replenish our supplies comes to fruition, we are down to the bottom of the barrel. The seven or eight boxes of red pens that remains behind holding down the fort mocks everyone who wants to use a tree pad to take notes.

Red is the color of mistakes, warnings, trouble, negative amounts of money, notes from a teacher of boss. In my case, my old boss insisted on my printing out a web page and he would mark it up with a red pen for me to apply the corrections and then ... print it out again to be marked up.

Of course, I wind up with a handful of leftover pens. Many are odd brands or red. it isn’t that our office spends a lot of money on pens. They turn up with crates of store brands. I do not remember the last time I liked the pens we had on our supply shelf. The shelf happens to be next to the restrooms so I get a chance to notice our lack of proper color pens a couple times a day.

If you do find yourself with a couple black pens at this point in the office supply cycle, it is a good idea to grab a couple red pens and swap the ink cartridges. Put a piece of tape or something on the pens for your own convenience. Then guard them with your career because it might be a while before the supply lines find their way back to your oasis of booty known as the supply shelf.