My Precious G-Tec Pen
Last Monday I found myself in Providence, a huge bookstore in Ion Orchard. They had shelf upon shelf of pens of all sizes and colors and brands. There must have been several thousands in there (not that I bothered to actually count) and other people would have been confused as to which pen to choose, but not me. I knew exactly what I wanted, and after several minutes of searching, I was ecstatic when I finally found it nestled in a bottom shelf – a Pilot G-Tec C4 pen.
When I was in school, the one thing I never left the house without was a pen. There was a bump on my right middle finger where the pen pushed against every time I went a-scribbling, which I did a lot. My problem was that pens often dried up on me even before their ink was used up. Only one pen was reliable till the last drop – G-Tec. It was costly, though. At 50+ pesos, that was ten times more than the cost of an ordinary pen and almost worth two days’ allowance. I did not mind, though, because I could always count on it for two things: that it will always have ink and that my handwriting would always look its best. It was my most precious possession back then and I’d go crazy when it disappeared from my sight. In fact, a certain person used to purposely drive me nuts by hiding it.
The bump on my finger is no longer there now, because once I started working, the keyboard replaced the pen. But I miss my G-Tec pen and its certainty, its reliability, its simplicity. Maybe it wasn’t a G-Tec pen I was looking for when I went out of my way to find a bookstore just so I could buy one last Monday. Maybe I was looking for what it represented – a life that was simple and uncomplicated.
