Saturday morning, 5:15 am, I'm driving through the dark trying to avoid deer, on the way to my (volunteer, unpaid) radio gig. Mentally I go down the checklist. CD case-check, Laptop-check. I slap the pocket. Oh, no - no pens!

Now, using a fountain pen during a radio show is a really pleasant experience. I'm the first shift of the radio "day", so I get to set up the log. During the shift, there are events to log, and notes to collect on the programming. Perhaps journaling some of the phone calls.

Doomed to four hours with a botchy bic stik!

Anyone else had this experience?

Yes and I solved it by stashing "emergency pen rescue kits" in my car trunk and office. Small pen, cartridges, note pad, mallet to whack forehead!

Ouch
You have my sympathy Rob...

clancy

I never forget my Fountain pen,I always put it inside my jacket and see to it that nothing is left.
I always see to it that it's safe with me,My Fountain pen is a piece of my soul. =)

Your story was so chilling that it has made me contemplate stashing "lifeboat" fountain pens in various places. I'm not a cartridge guy, but I think in this case a cart would ensure proper functioning of a long stashed pens. As in, "In case of emergency, pierce cartridge."

Doug

I've had worse... I am a student, and so only ever have one, relatively cheap pen at a time. I dropped my Parker on its nib in early December, and so asked for a Waterman as a Christmas present. Come February it still hadn't arrived, and WHSmiths sent a note saying that they couldn't get the pen, so I have ordered it off ebay instead... for now I've been borrowing £2 pens and biros for a total of TWO MONTHS!! Needless to say my dip pens have also received significant usage. Hours spent chanting "I want my Expert! I Want My Expert! I WANT MY EXPERT!!". Sigh.

Argh! To be totally penless is horrible!

I keep 2 Carenes with cartridges in a pen case so I won't run out.

I always keep a naff pen in my desk at work - at least I won't be absolutely without a pen.

Regards

Richard.

This is why I have at least one pen in every bag I own(Only 3 actually). Usually is just a cheap Hero or Pilot pen. Just yesterday I emptied out my Timbuk2 to throw it in the washer, at least I though I did. When I pulled out the bag, a Vector fell out. None the worse for wear despite all that tumbling around except a cap full of ink.

At first I considered the recommendations for "emergency stashes" to be a bit overdone. After all, four hours with a ball point is not exactly a life crisis.

But then, considering I just took delivery on a six pack of Hero's, perhaps leaving one in the GO bag wouldn't be a bad idea. I'm guessing it will survive two to four weeks of non-use. They're converter, not cartridge pens. Any thoughts on how to keep them ready to go?

I love that I can totally relate...!

I got tired of doing this so.... I carry one in my pocket at all times and have several in my various bags/cases/etc... I also attach one to whatever journal or notebook I might be using.

So odds are good that I have one and often several pens handy.

But then I also carry a camera compulsively so a book and a few pens is a minor burden to add.

I just about never leave the house without a pen in pocket and I often have several at hand in the briefcase. The last time I made an exception to that rule, I was in the car and in need of making a note. Quick look in the glove box shows one old fountain pen and a host of ball point pens. The FP was empty and the BPs were empty or dried up. Yikes! Not even a broken pencil to be had. Car has been restocked with usable writing instruments. I am thinking of placing a pen encased in a sealed glass test tube at various locations I frequent and marking it "In Case Of Emergency, Break."

One simply must have pockets! If I'm not wearing any pockets I am at risk of forgetting my pen(s) - this has happened on several occasions. Unfortunately, girl clothes seem to have less pockets than mens clothes...

I clip a pen to my collar. Sometimes more, depending. But at least one. Usually only the one. I've been known to fall asleep with it clipped to my pyjama collar.

I don't think anyone here is going to think that's weird.

Ethernautrix,

Not weird at all. Could happen to anyone!

Share with the group. You are among fiends... I mean friends.


The break-in-case-of-emergency pen is brilliant!

I carry two pens at all the time. FP for me and a BP for everyone else. Over time I have developed a stronger and stronger aversion to using BPs. The way the ink flows while writing feels almost greasy. Anyone agree?

For non-catridge pens, I suppose you could seal the pen in an little sandwich bag (they have some very shallow ones about 2-3") air tight bag, roll it up pushing all the air out and pop it into a plastic tube or traveling tooth brush tube. I have on of those vac-sealers and it sucks all the air out of a small bag and thermo-seals the end. Just clip open and use.

I wear a hip-pack at all times, usually has my wallet, my medications, a FP. Plus a Cross BP in case some one asks for a pen. This ensures that I never am FP-less.

I live in a place that is below freezing for too much of the year, so stowing a fountain pen and FP ink in the car is out of the question (other than the Noodler's freeze-proof one, but that would raise too many other problems). So my contingency pen planning involves one of my few ballpoints; I keep a Fischer space pen in my car and another in a bag I generally take traveling if I might be walking around.

Interesting that you differentiate between medications and fountain pens....

This is intriguing. Do you add the pen after donning pjs because you feel more complete with a FP (which, of course, we would all understand), or do you transition to pjs in advance of continuing to work or write or pay bills or other FP activities? (Or, wait, more intriguing yet, is a fountain pen part of, umm, one's bed-time activities? In which case, I for one am missing out and need to learn more.)

Although I've not yet fallen asleep with it clipped to my pajamas, lately every morning and night my daily writer is there on my bedside table beside my wallet.

I can't vouch for all the other pen fiends out there, but for myself, it is a nice activity to write with a good pen for a while before sleep.
There's something about entering a few pleasant thoughts in my journal about my day--because the days go past so quickly. I'm often astounded how long it's been since I last wrote in my journal. Recording a memory from the day in my journal helps to make the day feel complete.

Sometimes I don't journal about my day... but just like using the fountain pen. Writing with a good pen on good pen friendly paper is in and of itself a pleasant way to wind down at the end of the day. Perhaps it's that I write slowly and it stills me in a meditative kind of way. I've been practicing improving my penmanship, by writing out slowly a mantra that I wish to be mindful of in my life. Often meditation is only thought of as seated and eyes closed... but methods of meditating are can be more visual, like with a mandala, and moving as with Tai Chi. And of course there's the Zen Buddhist monks who meditate through their calligraphy brush work.
Meditation is a way of becoming more still and centered, and it makes for better sleep.

Oh boy, I can relate to this, alright!!

I have a nasty habit of realising I don't have something only when it's too late - when I've left the house and I've covered five blocks, when I'm on the tram, in the car, on the plane, sitting in class...Grrrr!!

It's not so-much a problem these days - I've developed tactics and methods for not forgetting stuff, but in the past it was a pain. I'd go to school and sit down and suddenly realise - WHERE IS MY PEN!?

In junior-school, this wasn't a problem. I could keep a spare fountain pen and ink my desk - but in senior-school it was a nightmare. And I HATE using ballpoints because they tire out my hand and cause cramping. In the end, I developed the pat-down test before I leave a room, tram, car or the house.

If I don't feel a rectangle in my pocket (pen-case), or a long slender shape in my pocket (single pen), I know I've forgotten my fountain pens!! Winter is the best, I find. I put them inside the inner-pockets of my coat and once in there, they never get lost!

I never liked my winter coat until I realized the inner pockets made perfect spots to clip pens to. Now I open up my coat and have no less than 8 writing utensils hanging there, waiting to be used.

I used to be really bad about leaving my phone, wallet, or pens behind, so I, too, took to a "pat-down" approach each morning. Check for the iPhone, the wallet, the watch, the pens. I haven't left anything behind in a while.

I don't know what I'm going to do come spring though. My light coat doesn't have inner pockets and I don't want to carry around all my pens in a pants pocket. I think this is a valid excuse to spend lots of money on some of the pen cases I've been eying....

I've got so many things to carry when I leave the house everyday, but one thing I've never forgotten is my pen, my Parker .45, but I've forgotten my tablet stylus if that counts as a pen. Still I have a bottle of Parker Quink and a Hero 231 at work.

I've might take JSorrel's suggestion, taking the pat-down, except check for I've got no worry for pens but an additional worry for my stylus (I should really put it in the pen slot). I've also got to make sure my stuff is in my bag.

I had written about not leaving the house without a pen in the very first article I wrote. It was published in the local newspaper. I've posted it on my blog on the 11th anniversary of its publication. Please, folks, if you have the time check it out at this link.

[url="http://http://vinodekbote.blogspot.com/2007/10/my-first-article-penchant-for-pens.html"

Thanks

Vinod

There is nothing a heart wrenching as the moment when I realize I've forgotten my pen. Like several others I've taken to stashing a few pens in key locations to prevent a day without a fountain pen. I have also once made an extra trip back home just to retrieve my pen. My wife just shakes her head in disbelief. My kids don't know what to think. Someday they'll learn.

Everyone will learn one day.. They will know how bad the modern day ballpoints are, I've got an obsession like vinod ekbote, but I've got a bit more self control over my instinct to buy more pens.. therefore I only have about 50ish, but I've got that impulse when it comes to ink (some are over 30 years old).. gonna have to take a month off and write reviews of all of them and maybe open some unopened bottles.

Two words - Pilot Varsity. One in the car, one in my backpack, one at the office. Nice enough writers to substitute in case of emergency. Cheap enough to not worry about them.

Today, I was reminded about why I find a fountain pen such a necessity. I was busy writing out labels to stick on bottles.

You know those labels...the rectangular ones with the sticky undersides, white in colour. EXTREMELY prone to feathering and bleeding. I could not use a fountain pen. So I used one of the few ballpoints in my collection.

I wrote with this pen in 'fountain pen mode' (nice and relaxed) - Nothing. So I had to press perhaps two or three times as hard, JUST to get it to WRITE. If I had forgotten a fountain pen and had to use a BALLPOINT throughout a two-hour university lecture and copy down ALL those PAGES of notes...I think I'd much rather commit suicide. I just would not be able to do it.

All the more important to remember to bring fountain pens and not to forget them!

Well the gel ink pens are ok, to a point, as a backup.

nice to read that others use fountain pens and writing in the same way... I don't do journal writing... but I do each night spend a lot of time... and always just prior to going to bed... of just writing, practicing, over and over and over... sometimes just the name of the different fp's I am playing with that night... or om mani padme hum... or anything that flows in and out of my mind... over and over... filling page after page with whatever... and nothing... with zigzags... writing line after line... and then across the page at 90 degrees to the fist lot... until the page becomes melded with one's consciousness... such a nice way to go to bed...

I never leave my house without:

an accurate timepiece (these days an iPhone)

a pressed linen handkerchief

a wallet with ID and a moneyclip with enough scoots to get me home

a small notebook

a business card case

two reliable fountain pens charged with ink (one as a backup to the other)

and something from the soft underbelly of a dead reptile

I'm in the military and wear a utility uniform almost everyday. I have lots of pockets on my blouse (shirt to you civvies) and trousers. The left sleeve on my ACU also has a slot for pens. I do have to be careful because it's easy to get nice items damaged with so much carry space and tons of junk to put in it. I have taken to putting a nice Parker 15 in one of the left sleeve pen holder slots. The cap seats sufficiently on the pen and it's not come off and inked a uniform yet. I always carry my Cedar Blue "51" with me. I keep it in a napkin lined Vegafina cigar tube that I brought home with me from Afghanistan. The looks I get are worth the price of admission when I pull a very nice fountain pen from a cigar tube

I normally carry two or three pens with me where ever I go when I do wear civilian clothes. The "51" is normally part of the load. It came in handy at a store yesterday when the clerk passed me a ball point to sign my credit slip. The thing was dead as a hit possum. I pulled out the "51" and signed with no problems. We even had a quick discussion about fountain pens. Too fun.

Great discussion! That's why I keep coming back to FPN!!

My sister ALWAYS wears this pair of shorts with a large pocket. She's been known to have 18 pens and pencils in there. She's not a FP'er, but may very well soon be...

Anyways, I've been devastated when I forget my good ballpoints now, and I imagine even more devastated when I get my first FP, if I forget it. Maybe I could just glue it to my hand...

How about forgetting to refill your pen?

On Friday, I grabbed my trusty MYU 500BS as I ran out the door, forgetting to check the ink level. Unfortunately that is one of the features lacking on that old Pilot--an ink window. The converter makes it worse (with a cartridge, you can always check the ink level after unscrewing the body).

So I'm at work and... dry. Nothing but a few tick droppings of ink. What to do?

I took an empty water bottle, filled it about 1/8th full, bent the plastic cap to make a "V" lip, poured a little water into the cap, then dripped it slowly into the converter. There was enough ink residue left behind to activate after a little shaking with the inserted water droplets. I was able to use it sparingly for the rest of the day.

I have many fountain pens lying around, so I rarely forgot my pens. Actually, there is usually a FP within my arm distance, even if I'm not carrying any.

I've had my fountain pens run out of ink in inopportune moments several times.

Most of those times, I was able to change cartridges and keep on going.

But one day...

---

About four or five years ago, before I joined the FPN, I had two fountain pens. One Cross which I really don't have much love for, and my Campo Marzio. If I'd taken better care, I would even then, have had nearly a dozen pens, but they were all lost over the years...Anyway...

In that day and age, I didn't know about international converters or cartridges. And when the last cartridge on my Campo Marzio ran out, I wasn't sure what else to do. So what I did do, was each morning before school, I would dunk the pen into my bottle of ink (Parker Quink. Black) and head off to school.

One good dunking would cause the pen to write flawlessly for the whole day. Provided there wasn't a sudden, huge burst of writing.

On this day, there was. A Chinese test (I hate Chinese). About 3/4 through the test, my pen ran out of ink. Damn it! I had to get a Bic from the teacher and finish it off. I was so upset. From that day onward, I have instituted the habit of taking a bottle of ink with me when I go out.