It seems I’ll never be too rich not to be tempted to steal the hotel room pen. I got myself a really great multi-ink pen for $5 at MOMA. I don’t need another pen. Yet I can’t resist stealing the hotel pen. I don’t touch the little soaps and shampoo bottles (any more). But pens are irresistible. I also love the word pen. And I love it in Russian, “roochka.” In Spanish, I don’t like it.
10 responses to “Hotel Pens”
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You’re not alone! I always steal the pen. When I went to Denver, actually, the local stores often also had the hotel pens for signing things, which I found interesting. I usually steal the little pad of paper, any coffee if it’s free, the little candies if they have them, the soap, shampoo, and the conditioner (especially if I actually use it). At the conference I went to in Denver, they had these little jars of honey (completely free) — I walked away with four or five. Once my family came home from vacation and unpacked to find a hotel towel. That was an honest accident, though.
My philosophy is, you’re on vacation (sort of, in the case of a conference), so if you’ll use it and it’s free why not take it? For all the hotel knows, you used it and threw it out.
And this comment makes me sound like a kleptomaniac. I’m not, I swear.
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Well, just be aware, lady, that you might not only be a kleptomaniac and a crook (which is contemptible enough), but also an ableist.
Many fancy fountain pens, especially those found in ritzy hotels, are designed for right-handed writers — too fat and thick to be gripped comfortably and functionally by those of us who are left-handed, and who are forced by fate of the English language to have to push our script left-to-right on the page, instead of pulling it naturally right-to-left in the so-called “normal ” direction of over 90% of right-handed English writers.
You progressives talk about “P.C.” rights and “Social Justice”. But who speaks up for the 8% of the population who are left-handers, even when they’re on your side?
Eight of the U.S. Presidents were left-handed: James A. Garfield, Herbert Hover, Harry S. Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. So were many internationally renowned geniuses like Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein — and ME.
Trump is a right-hander — okay, makes you feel normal, right? — and Steve Bannon, as perverted as they come, is a contemptible lefty-scribbler, definitely to be condemned.
Fine, enjoy your little time in power. There’s a revolution coming, and those of us who have been persecuted as left-handers all our lives will neither forgive or forget! I’d say you smug right-handed people have until 2018 at the most to wake up and develop proper writing survival skills.
You’ll definitely be shown no mercy after the New Federal Left-handed Cursive Script Order becomes law in 2020! 🙂
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There are actually tutorials online now that demonstrate left-handed fountain pen writing. I’ve never tried it, and I’ve had too many bad experiences with fountain pens tearing the damn paper, but there are people who make it work. It has to do more with the positioning of your hand relative to what you’re writing.
Still, I’ve never seen a fountain pen in a hotel room. They’re always cheap ballpoint pens, and they don’t always even work. Also, if it’s free, you can take it. How is a person who takes advantage of free goods a criminal? You’re already paying the hotel. Doubtless part of that charge includes the cost of complimentary items like pens and paper and shampoo and such.
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“to steal the hotel room pen”
Knock yourself out, I’m sure the hotel doesn’t mind ask at the front desk if you don’t believe me, it’s secondary or tertiary advertising for them.
The types of pens hotels have are incredbily cheap (especially produced in bulk)
Which word don’t you like in Spanish, pluma? boligrafo?
I remember one of the first words I learned in Polish was pióro which I liked and was supposed to mean ‘pen’ but once in Poland I quickly found that people looked at me funny if I used it. As it turns out pióro means ‘feather’ and might be used of an old time quill pin (the type used with an ink well). Now the usual word is długopis (with the o accented) which is not…. as nice.
The Russian word sounds like ‘little hand’ or ‘handle’ in Polish.
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Roochka is totally little hand. And I think the sound is cute. Bolígrafo, though, just sounds atrocious. I don’t like it.
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I usually don’t take the pens because they tend to wear out quickly, but the writing pad usually finds it’s way into my purse. I don’t bother with the shampoo or conditioner because they typically just snarl my hair anyway, but I have a definite weakness for tiny soaps. I don’t know why tiny things are better, but they just are.
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I take the pads, too. 🙂
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I have the same multicolor pen from Moma, have been buying them for years. They are exciting, I feel like a kid every time I get one. Great for grading.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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