Favorite Pen Found Under Desk

[The Pickle]

A man in San Diego has found his favorite pen. It was under his desk. “I’m just elated,” said Tom Sneedy who works in the marketing department for a major software company. “I had written the pen off, and then I just found it under my desk. That’s a pun in case you didn’t catch it. Are you going to print that? Not what I just said, but what I said about writing the pen off.”

The pen had gone missing in May, though Mr. Sneedy cannot pinpoint the exact date. “I remember that I walked over to Rhonda’s desk, and when I came back someone asked me to sign something, and when I reached for my pen, it wasn’t there.”

According to sources, Mr. Sneedy first checked his shirt pocket. Then he checked his pants pockets. Then he quickly scanned his desk. He looked over his left shoulder, then his right shoulder and then all around. “Now where did I leave my pen?” he was heard asking. Mr. Sneedy then took a few deep breaths and said aloud, “Okay. Just stop and think. What were you doing five minutes ago?”

Unfortunately, Mr. Sneedy had to leave his office only moments later to catch a flight to Chicago where he was responsible for the booth setup at one of the company’s major trade shows.

“Naturally, I was beside myself,” said Mr. Sneedy. “I knew that once I boarded the plane I was going to want to write something. And sure enough, when I sat down I had a great idea for a booth giveaway. I can’t even remember what it was now, because I didn’t have my favorite pen to write it down.”

Mr. Sneedy refers to his favorite pen as the “staff of ideas.” “I just feel more special whenever I have the pen,” continued Mr. Sneedy. “To anyone else it looks like a simple, plastic hotel pen. But I’ve always done my best work with it. I’ve often wondered what I will do when it runs out of ink. In some ways I considered that losing the pen was a better ending that just having it stop working one day.”

But when Mr. Sneedy returned to work after the trade show, he found the staff of ideas under his desk. “I was crawling under the desk to plug in my phone charger, and I saw it there in the back corner. It was very exciting.”

Mr. Sneedy has taped the pen to his desk to prevent losing it a second time. “I just can’t go through all that again.” As for what he’ll do when the pen runs out of ink, Mr. Sneedy offered, “I’m going to leave this crappy job and ask Rhonda to marry me.”