Klepto

I don't know why I feel I need to use this blog as my confessional. Maybe because it's easier to admit one's faults to the great void- that some people just happen to read...?  Who knows?

Anyway- I was very productive today. I can see the floor in my room again (it's still burnt orange), I did three loads of laundry (when you don't know what is clean and what isn't, it's just easier to wash it all again), and filed my taxes. Yes, yes, I know, I'm awesome. sigh...

I have a point.

Back Story:

I have a fear of being without a pen. I don't know why. Perhaps in a previous life I died tragically because I did not have a pen to write my ransom check... or maybe the pen was mightier than the sword and that's what pulled me out of my fictional novel and into this cruel, real world (No more Enchanted for me for a while).  Anyway- I have to have a pen with me at all times.

It's a family thing actually, we seem to latch onto pens and keep them for dear life. Years ago when I worked at Freddies, and my sister, and my sister and my brother and my brother all worked there too (they all still do- I'm the only one who escaped The Claw) we had a bazillion Fred Meyer pens. I'm talking boxes of them. It's not like we were purposely pilfering pens, but somehow they just ended up in pockets, and pockets were emptied at the end of the day... they add up.

So after I had escaped The Claw and was in New Jersey, my mommy sent me a Christmas present. She did the 12 days of Christmas for Sister Eriksen and me. One of the gifts was a bouquet of Fred Meyer pens.

Fast forward ten years:

I'm working at the hospital. I like clicky pens. Pens that don't click are a total bummer to me. I don't like pens with lids because lids are lost too easily. Plus, I'm a clicker. People know when I'm coming because I click my pens. Annoying really, but it soothes me. Anyway, one day I cleaned out my purse and counted THIRTY pens. Yikes! I never realized I'd latched onto so many! It was then that I realized I had a problem. I've been aware of it ever since, and tried to control it.

Today, cleaning my room, I went through my work shirt pockets, my purses, my dressers... and this is what I found:

Clearly I still have a problem. If ever I am near you, and you have a clicky pen of which you are fond, you'd best chain it down lest it become my property. Because apparently, once a klepto- always a klepto.

There is one pen in there that has a lid- that is the pen I stole from the job interview I had the day I moved away from Denver. It serves as a sad reminder.