This modern thing you’re reading, this bloggery, was written with more traditional means. Not the glowing phosphor or glimmering flat-panel variant you’re currently enjoying, but the original incarnation. A real, shiny fountain pen letting loose waterproof ink onto hard-bound lined paper.

I don’t do this often. In fact, the Retro 51 Tornado currently scribbling across the page has been boxed away for some time now. To be honest, I missed it. I missed it because I have a strange fascination with pens in general and fountain pens in particular.

Now, don’t confuse fascination with, say, expertise or experience. I’m sure true fountain pen enthusiasts (yes, they exist) would look upon me with the same disdain as a wine aficionado witnessing the purchase of a box of wine or a horrified cigar fanatic staring at a gift of Black and Milds. I do, however, own two…this one intended for writing and a calligraphy fountain pen I once used for lettering and inking The Kenmore. Two pens and accessories that, all told, didn’t cost more than a one hundred dollars (typo intentional…inside joke) over the years. To me, that’s a sizeable investment for nothing more than an infatuation with writing utensils.

I got an e-mail from the PenCity mailing list today. It’s a list I subscribe to in the hopes that they’ll accidentally send me a recipe for inexpensive homemade ink or a coupon for one of each kind of pen in the world for free. These events have not yet occurred. Anyway, today’s e-mail was about Jaguar’s new, beautiful Signature pen and is recent availability.

So shiny. So pretty. And I imagine that writing with it is not unlike the fluidity of creating chocolate rivers in silk with a feather.

I will never own a Jaguar automobile because I assume the relative sticker shock could very well kill me or lead me to kill others in a muddled and confused haze. To call the purchase of this pen decadent would be effectively redefining decadent to mean the same thing except covered with diamonds, caramel, and unicorn fur.

This single pen, which neither writes for you nor drives you around in a Jaguar while wearing a jaunty cap, carries a price tag of $400. I can’t fathom going to the kind folks at PenCity, handing them my bank card number, and telling them I want to trade that kind of sum for a hand-crafted metal stick. That’s so far outside the scope of my lifestyle that I have to pass through a guarded gate and wear an ascot just to be allowed to think about it.

It makes me appreciate my $25 stainless steel Tornado all the more. Thank you, low-end fountain pen, for playing essentially the same role for a far more reasonable salary. Now sit and watch as I make irrelevant your hard work with my keyboard.

Filed under: Dork Stuff, General, Writing