I grabbed a big handful of Hot Tamale candies from the accounting office where I work. Not wanting to be seen as piggish while stuffing my face, I shoved the overflowing handful in my pants pocket. I left the office and began reaching in, each time grabbing a small handful and greedily jamming them in my mouth. I got down to last three, and proceeded to eat them in the same way. Something wasn't right. One of them squirted juice in my mouth, and it tasted nothing like the cinnamon burst I anticipated. Then I felt a little tiny sphere roaming around on my tongue. It was then that I realized I had consumed the standard international cartridge full of blue ink I had stowed away in my pocket earlier in the day. Ten things I learned: 1) the human jaw can easily burst a cartridge; 2) that little ball in the end comes out when one chomps a cartridge; 3) that little ball proves very easy to swallow; 4) ink is bitter; 5) do not assume what is in the hand is food; 6) it's difficult to exit an office gracefully with a mouthful of ink; 7) ink stains the teeth and other fleshy parts of the mouth; 8) toothpaste does not remove the stain very well; 9) while laundry bleach removes ink stains on the teeth, it also burns off the top layer of mouth flesh; 10) piston fillers prevent this misfortune.

sorry, but

Sorry for your misfortune. But, I need to admit...I laughed.

This just made me spurt coffee all over my keyboard!

You had my sympathy up until point #9.

OH! Poor you!

Did you really use laundry bleach on your teeth? [insert bug-eyed emoticon here]

Hilarious!

Funny story , sorry about what happened though..

That's was too funny!

Sorry but
PMS

Sorry for your misfortune, Fr Rob!!!
Good to see you hereon FPN, though.

Wish we had photographs....

Whoa, yikes, LOL! ;-)

Sorry for your experience - even the bleach, but that's funny, I don't care who you are

Thanks for the story. You've made me feel much better at having already spent an hour at work before realizing my shirt was on inside out. (To be fair, it's a handknit, lace sweater, no tags, and imperceptible seams. But still, I made it - I should know.)

HILARIOUS!

Oh, terrible... that's just awful...


but so funny! Thanks for sharing!

This is what I thought of while reading

Thanks for sharing your story. I used to do the same thing and toss some in the front pocket, but now I get the big movie theater box sized ones and eat them out of the box.

Funniest thing I have read all day.

Great. Now I'm laughing out loud at work.




^{Oh, who'm I kidding? I always do that. But this definitely helped. Ha ha ha!}

That has to be one of the best pen incident stories out there.

Hope the mouth is feeling better now.

Kurt

But so sorry it happened.

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

I have to admit the laundry bleach part raised the hair on my head. That had to hurt!

If I happen to be carrying international sized cartridges, I use the metal tins that Herbin cartridges come in. There is no mistaking that tin for anything else, they are durable and convenient.

I am ashamed to admit that I laughed at your story. Could have been me, I suppose, except that I rarely use cartridge pens.

By the way, tooth whiteners would probably have removed the blue stain while not burning your mouth.

Expensive candy, eh?

Peter

It sounds like those containers would also be convenient for carrying Hot Tamales candy.

I always was curious as to what ink tasted like.

I'll settle for your explanation of "bitter" rather than experience it myself.

It's always good to be able to laugh at yourself!

Funny story!

:::points and laughs:::

You are killin' me!!

You just made my day.
When I was in college I worked at a paintball field, so I know what water based paint tastes like(it goes everywhere).
This, however, answers my questions about the taste of ink though.

Funniest. Thing. Ever!

*totally* owned.

Nowhere near as funny, but reminds me of a) the girl in my kindergarten class who, upon becoming overcome by the delicious fruity odor of the smelly markers we were using, started scrubbing her tongue with one and the time I was doing my homework with a cheap Sheaffer calligraphy NoNonesense that had tried out- kept licking the nib to keep the ink coming, and didn't notice anything off until my wife's sister came home to find my entire mouth, lips and teeth blue-green, and acting like nothing was weird was going on. At least it was Skrip and not something more saturated.

Good luck, and know this: give it a few days, it'll wear off! That's what I tell my wife when I somehow get ink on our almost-3mo. old. Not that it is any consolation.

Aaron

Yikes! Wish you'd asked us before doing the bleach rinse. I'd have guessed that a dilute hydrogen peroxide rinse (which is fizzy but noncorrosive--some folks use it as first aid for mouth sores) would do the job on the ink while sparing your mouth lining.

I'm sorry for your corrosive experience--but the way you told it made me laugh loudly enough to startle my cat.

Raise up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it!

That's very funny! I'm sorry about your mouth, though, that sounds painful. Next time, I would try the hydrogen peroxide first, maybe some diluted ammonia. I'd keep your cartridges in an Altoids tin from now on.

This reminds me of the time, when I was 8, that I got my mother's superglue to do something with. I couldn't get the cap off, so I put the cap between my teeth, gripped the barrel of the tube firmly, and pulled! The cap popped off and I got a mouthful of superglue. I learned a few things, too. Don't pull anything off with your teeth. Superglue feels and tastes plasticky. The feel of skin ripping from your lips isn't pleasant, and neither is trying to pull your tongue off your palate and teeth.

Ahahahaha, that is amazing. I am both sorry and impressed that you managed to do that...

When I was a kid (and i've told this story here before so bear with me) there was a guy in grade school that liked to use those sheaffer school FPs with the colored barrels and metal caps. One day in the classroom he was writing something and stopped to consider it. During his contemplation he put the nib end of the FP in his mouth the way some people do with a pencil. Soon as he did that I saw the peakcock blue ink travel by capilary attraction down his tongue and into his now open mouth. HAHAHAHAHA. William had a blue mouth for a long time after that. William I will remember you always for this crazy mistake and hope you are doing well today.

LOL!!! YOU DIDN'T!...Oh god...Okay, lesson learnt, never put ink-cartridges loose into a pocket!

By the way, has any one ever considered transporting their cartridges around in one of those Victorian-era match-cases?



In the old days of strike-anywhere matches, carrying loose matches in one's pockets was quite literally a recipe for disaster, so a gentleman would keep his matches in one of those match-cases (or vestas, as they were called) and keep it suspended from his watch-chain. I found one at the flea-market a few days ago and considered buying it for the purpose of storing ink-cartridges on the-go, but since I barely use cartridges anymore, it seemed rather pointless...anyone else considered it, though? It looks like a rather convenient way to store cartridges on you as well as keeping the presentation nice.

Camping supply departments often have plastic match cases with screw on caps. They're just the right length for a Lamy cartridge and accept Platinum cartridges with room to spare.

35mm film canisters are about right for short international cartridges.

Neither of those options has quite the style of the silver match case, though.

OMG, he's alive! I hadn't seen Rotomobees post anything for a long while. Incidentally, he has to be the King of VP/Capless pens, having an extraordinary collection that even rivals Carmen Rivera. Well, I'm very sorry to hear of your horrible misfortune, but you told it in such a comical way, you had to expect we'd all be rolling because of it.


But man, how on earth could you mistaken an ink cartridge for a candy--are the hot tamale candies cylindrical? Or was it one of those moments of feverish delight where anything in your pocket was game for consumption?

I'm laughing and in pain... I had to swallow a lot of very hot coffee very quickly in order to avoid a messy keyboard/monitor/coffeespew incident.

I want to know what you're doing with an international cartridge in your pocket? Shouldn't you have chomped down on a Pilot cart? I'd like to know what Pilot blue/black tastes like

gosh what a predicament

I'm glad you are OK and that you shared your tale for us to learn from your lesson.........

I now know what ink tastes lie but what on earth is a hot tamales???

Here we are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Tamales

I can kinda see how he made the mistake with the ink-cartridge, now!

Hysterical - I have now had to clean sandwich crumbs off the monitor!



Sorry, what I meant to say was "Oh, dear. What a shame."

Chris

I was doing a little calligraphy with a Rotring Art Pen, so I was packing around the international size. The accounting office is empty now, so I've got to go and steal a few more Hot Tamales!

Hot Tamales are a hot cinnamon-flavored chewy candy. See http://www.justborn.com/products/hot_tamales.html

They are shaped like "Mike and Ike" candies, but hot hot hot rather than fruit.