The Story of the Pen

I had a pen, and this is the story. It was given to me by the lady at the bank who had received it from her corporate office. The men that ran the office had sent pens, similar but not identical ones, to banks all over the United States. They were sent out initially as part of some sort of customer retention program, but when it was discovered that they did not help retain customers, they were discontinued. This made my pen a limited edition, although there was no way of proving it to anyone but myself.

The next time I went to that bank, the lady who gave it to me, Rhea, asked if I still had it. It turned out that it was in my coat pocket, so I showed her and she smiled. I think that's when everything really started, with that smile. She asked if I would mind using the pen and writing down my phone number and address, which I did, of course, because Rhea was not unattractive. I asked her if she wanted to go get dinner and maybe play a round of miniature golf, and she said maybe next week. I gave her my pen to help her remember.

Well, the next week, pretty much to the day, I got home to find my entire apartment empty except for one pen, the same pen I had given Rhea a week earlier. Angry, I immediately drove to the bank and stormed in, hoping but doubting that Rhea would be there.

It turns out she was, and she still had the pen I'd given her, so I guess the whole break-in / pen thing was just a coincidence. Weird.