I have had one from my earliest days in school, my parents believed every child should learn how to use one and use one well. Even if I was careless as a child and never appreciated my education, my parents´ persevered. Now it was my turn to buy one for my father and I stood there looking at the perfect present as Father´s Day approached.
Behind a locked glass cabinet, it shined bright and I had to try it out, I had to see if it felt right.
I had forgotten about buying a present until I saw the NRA´s Father´s Day tweets, trending on Twitter. Tragically the tweets came hours after a mass shooting in Orlando, left more than 50 people dead and many injured.
I looked down the barrel to the tip, it shined bright with a stainless steel barrel, elegant and sophisticated but I had to try it out.
A security guard passed me by, his belt brimming with bullets and his old trusty revolver.
The salesman removed a spent cartridge and handed it to me.
I imagined myself like hunting enthusiast Hemingway who once famously wrote, “Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter.”
Don´t worry I was only hunting for a Father´s Day present. I clicked twice even though I knew it was empty. This annoyed the salesman but he still reloaded it and handed it to me.
A precision instrument in the right hand. There were racks full of more expensive examples. Some of them cost a few hundred euros, some were nearly a thousand euros and one cost more than my car.
The salesman finally reloaded the Parker Pen with a new cartridge and I clicked it. It sounded right, felt right and I hope my father will like it and now he too can "write like Hemmingway", like the Parker Pen advertisements of old.
The security guard with his old gun and belt full of bullets, the sheriff of the store, would he have shot me if I forgot to pay for the €28 pen? I guess the pen isn´t always mightier than the sword.
Of course, they can make a mess but they are safe in the right hands.
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