The BMW Pen

I've never been one that loved a fine pen.   I can appreciate a nice writing instrument, but for the most part as long as the tool in hand does a good job, I'm not overly critical.    I do have a pen now that I like to characterize as one of those, "nice pens" and the way I got it is somehow mysterious.

A few years back, for no reason I was able to discern, BMW sent me a pen.  It came in the mail in a nice box.  I would get promotional material from them from time to time because I was a repeat buy and current owner, but it was mostly things that talked about how great their next model so-and-so was and how, should I want to do a test drive, I was invited down to the nearest showroom so they could tempt me into purchasing yet another vehicle with them.

The pen was different.   It said something about thanks for being a customer in the very minimal paperwork, and that was it.   The pen was black with a rollerball cartridge inside.   It escaped me for a while that the letters, "BMW" were engraved around the ring of the cap.   I put it in my drawer and wondered how much that little pen added to the cost of my next BMW and didn't think much more of it.

But years later, I still use that pen.   I like that pen.   I choose it over every other pen in my drawer and I get annoyed when someone removes it from my drawer for their own purposes.  

Of all the things BMW has sent me, I think I will keep the pen the longest.  It has already outlasted one car.

The Big Boy Update:  My son asked us at dinner tonight, "is hugging love?"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: At dinner tonight we decided to get the children water instead of a calorie-based beverage so they could focus more on their food.   We explained that the entire family (my parents included) was having water with their dinner.  My daughter said, "I can't have water because I'm a kid."

Fitness Update:  Biking the children.  My husband and I took the kids for a bike ride on the back of our bikes yesterday late afternoon.   We went for seven miles in the park and then today we did another three miles with them around the neighborhood.   It's a lot of distance though for low calories, even with a thirty- or forty-pound child in a seat sitting behind you.  Still, it's fun and the kids love it.