Perhaps I've mentioned how Farmer H thinks everything belongs to him. And some things belong SOLELY to him. The Pony and I, however, cannot lay claim to personal items. They are community property. Like the milk The Pony bought for his morning cereal, a kind Farmer H doesn't like, but took offense to being "appreciated" in advance for not using it. But Farmer H has the blog off today.
"Pony. Every morning, I find a smudge on my glasses that I've left on the counter. Do you pick them up when you get your lottery ticket?"
"No. I don't have to touch the glasses, although you put my ticket on their case."
"It wouldn't surprise me if Dad is putting on my glasses to look at something! He's always over here using my counter."
"Technically, it's not YOUR counter."
"Yes it is! It's the place I always use, and then I find crumbs and grease spots on it."
"We don't really have ANOTHER counter."
"Yes we do. By the sink. And there's the whole cutting block. I don't know why Dad... AND you, feel the need to use my specific area."
"Meh. It's just convenient."
"And then I let you use my pen, I've told you where to find it, I don't MIND you using it, but you put it back all closed up!"
"Oh. You want me to leave it clicked out? I thought that was only the purple pen in the side of your purse, and not the black pen from your checkbook."
"I want them BOTH left clicked out. I hate grabbing my pen to write something, and it won't right because it's clicked in."
"Okay. I'll leave it clicked out."
"Just leave it the way you find it."
Simple, right? Simple instructions to understand. You may recall that The Pony needed to use New Delly on Tuesday night. He fell asleep, but came down Wednesday morning. I don't mind him using New Delly. I had made the copies he needed (two sets, 9 pages per set), and left them on my desk beside the mouse, with my ink pen in case he wanted to fill them out there while waiting for his typed-in document to print.
It's not a special ink pen. I've had it for at least five years, maybe ten. I used it for addressing Genius's envelope for his weekly letter, and to write on the back of my scratchers how much they won.
Yet when I entered my lair later that afternoon, my pen (I'd call him PENNY, but that seems wrong) did not look like he does in his posed picture.
THE CAP WAS ON MY PEN!
I don't mean to go all Nancy Kerrigan, but WHYYYYYYY? Why does Not-Penny need the cap on to rest on the edge of a stack of past years' tax folders? When I want a pen, I don't want to use two hands to make it write-ready. I want to pick it up and write with it. What could go wrong by leaving the cap off? Is Not-Penny going to skate around marking up my desk and papers while left alone, uncapped? I don't think so.
Isn't it common courtesy to leave things as you found them? And not foist your peccadilloes on someone else's rightful possessions?
6 comments:
Oh, if you were at your classroom today, covering the bulletin boards and boxing up your books--making it ready for August--you would not even notice these pen catastrophes.
If only...
Sorry Val, kitchen counters are common property for whoever lives in the house, the most you can expect is for them to be wiped clean after use. The pen is a minor matter, it takes barely two seconds to uncap it. on the other hand, who has a pen for that amount of time and has it still working?? Our Aussie pens run dry within a year. I buy them in boxes of fifty so I have enough for a few years at least.
You want too much! Just ask them and they will agree with me. I have the exact same problem of expecting HeWho to return things to their rightful place just as he found them. Never gonna happen!
Sioux,
"If only, if only," the woodpecker said, "I could stop pulling this wire out the front of my head." Oh. Sorry. I always mix that up. It's a combination of that saying from "Holes," and something Farmer H said in his sleep many years ago.
If I was in my classroom, I would be carefully stashing away my special pens, the ones nobody else was allowed to touch! The black fine-point, the red Pilot, and my blue mechanical pencil.
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River,
Surely you don't expect me to change my title to "It's a COMMON PROPERTY FIELD Around Here?" That counter is MINE, by cracky! Nobody is going to wipe it off, so they might as well keep themselves from using it!
Oh my gosh! That sounds like the words of an anti-pen-ite! {Seinfeld reference for Sioux] What's next, the belief that a stapler is just a stapler, and I shouldn't mind loaning mine to just anybody???
I haven't seen a pen like mine in quite some time. Whenever I find one I like, they get discontinued. Or maybe I just keep them so long that new models come out. I also have a red pen on my lair desk, and I haven't used a red pen since I retired! Which was in 2016. It still writes! Looks like the black one, only red cap and trim. It's a Bic BIRO Fine Point. Maybe my lair is so humid, being in the basement, that pens don't dry out...
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Kathy,
Yes, I DO want too much! You need to put a chain on your stuff, like a bank pen. I need to get a (locking) guard to put over my counter!
I remember Bic Biro fine points, also medium points and Bic Kilometrico, supposed to have enough ink to write for a kilometre, (one point six miles) not that I ever measured it. I'm sure I can still buy those, but they don't last as long as they used to, so why bother?
River,
Well, then, there you go! I must not have written 1.6 miles yet, so my pen still works! NOTHING lasts as long as it used to. I include KNEES on that list. That's why so many people these days have knee replacement surgery!
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