Michael’s Fat Boy Chopper (it’s a pen!)
I don’t know how it started.
My pen grip is abnormal; that might be it. Pens rest on my third finger, so heavily that that knuckle has developed a callus at its end, and a pink divot in the middle. Or else it might be that I’m full of rage, river deep and mountain high.
Whatever the cause, the fact remains that when I write with a pen, I press hard enough to make three copies even if I only need one, gripping my pen so tightly and pressing down so forcefully that my hand starts to ache within just a moment.
I cannot be trained out of doing this. I have tried.
The pen I use at work is a Bic Atlantis. It has that rubber grip, you know? But because I’m especially rageful there, and because the Atlantis is cheap, over time the rubber grip has come loose where I squeeze the pen hardest, leaving a pea-sized rubber bubble that I play with absently while I’m talking on the phone.
(I hate talking on the phone.)
The trouble is, I’ve been in love with pens since forever. My taste in pens keeps evolving, but I always have a collection of some sort, and I always use them, no matter how it pains me. For ages, this was my equivalent of buying shoes that are too small for you because you love them but the shop doesn’t have them in your size. I’d see some strange, wonderful, shiny, colourful, elegant or stylish pen, and that’s all I’d see.
After I used it, I noted the stiffness of my hand, its perpetual ache, but I refused to make the connection.
Still, I’ve had my moments of enlightenment. I’ve tried “everyday” pens like the PaperMate Dynagrip, the Dr. Grip, the PhD. They’ve never added anything but novelty to my writing experience.
I thought it was hopeless. I kept buying pens anyway.
Then, one day, I noticed an intriguing article on Ask MetaFilter: someone wanted recommendations for comfortable pens. He loved pens desperately. He had tried and failed to find The One: a pen that might become his regular Saturday night thing, no matter how the others flirted and preened.
HE UNDERSTOOD.
And this being Ask MetaFilter, he was flooded with ideas.
Try Sensa, someone said, citing their patented space-age gel grip technology or whatever the hell. (NB: I own a Sensa Cloud9. It’s nice enough to look at, and light as a feather, but even space-age gel is no match for my Death Grip; I squish it all the way against the barrel, where it’s no use to me at all.)
Others suggested the pens I mentioned earlier. I despaired anew. They didn’t know what it’s like to have such a forceful grip on a pen that your hand is bent into a hideous claw within minutes of use.
Then, I saw it.
Try Michael’s Fat Boy, someone said. They’re a bit pricier than you might want to pay, but they’re worth it. SO DAMN WORTH IT.
(I might be paraphrasing that a little bit.)
As soon as I Googled them, I knew I was onto something good. They make pens that look like silencers; pens that look like skyscrapers; pens that look like Spider-Man uses them to craft his witty bon mots.
Pens… that look like motorcycles. Not exactly like motorcycles, mind you, but they’re evocative, and that’s all that matters. You still have to write with it after all.
As beautiful and exciting as Michael’s pens are, they’re designed primarily to be functional. The mechanism used in its retractable pens is smooth and reliable. Mostly, Fat Boy barrels are outfitted with a rubber grip, since whoever designed them is aware that a pen crafted from a billet aluminum bar is going to slip eventually otherwise. Most of the pens are stubby — nobody really needs a long pen, do they? — and most of them are wide.
Somewhere between the beauty of these pens, the rubber grip and the width of the barrel is my ticket to pen paradise.
My hand feels better when I write with a Michael’s pen than when I don’t write anything. It’s like physiotherapy for my hand. I write, and my hand feels better and better by the second, and doesn’t tire or ache, and when I stop writing, my hand is disappointed, like a kid on the mechanical horse at Safeway when his mom runs out of quarters.
It’s true that they’re a bit pricey — they run anywhere from $70 to $350 depending on what you want — but… well. I don’t know how you could ever be sorry about venting your rage with a pen that has flames on the side and makes your hand feel like a bionic replacement part.
WRITE FOR ME, FAT BOY. YOU KNOW THE WAY I LIKE IT.
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I’m glad you have a pen designed expressly for you, pricey or not!
Someday I’ll be wealthy, and therefore able to buy this one Michael’s fountain pen. Probably they’ll have discontinued it by then, but I’ll find a way.
Holy moley that’s a spiffy pen. My own fave pen is cheap, but it telescopes!
That is shiny and wonderful, but I’d break that telescoping action, and no mistake. I wouldn’t want to, but it would totally happen.
You know twist pens? With few exceptions, my Death Grip shoves the ink right back up into the barrel.
Surely this death grip superpower of yours must be used in the service of truth and justice!