A Fountain Pen Disaster

Just when I was thinking that it had been a long time since I did a post on fountain pens, than something happened that made me the opportunity to write this post. I hadn’t bought a new fountain pen (though I would love to) or lost a fountain pen but I had the first fountain pen disaster of my life involving a major ink spill.

I had been writing with a fountain pen since nearly two decades and had never been had any serious accidents involving them. The most that happened was a broken nib when the pen slipped out of hand. But, the other day I had quite a serious accident/mishap that is not uncommon to those who use fountain pens daily. The mishap resulted in a ruined shirt.

I was attending a boring meeting, sitting out of sight in a corner and scribbling away in my notebook the draft of the post I had planned to do on waiting for the weekend papers. I was busy writing and did not hear my name being called. I rose abruptly; pen in hand, to answer one of my bosses. Then I sat down and absent mindedly put back the fountain pen in my shirt pocket.

I noticed that a few people across the table were beginning to stare at my shirt. I felt embarrassed and wondered if I had worn a shirt without a few buttons. I looked down and saw a blue stain that was fast spreading just under the pocket. I took out the pen hurriedly but it was too late; the stain achieved the size of a small football. That is one good shirt ruined because I had forgotten to put back the cap on the nib.