Dear guy handing out pens in the quad earlier today,

I’m sorry I thought you were ridiculous and a terrible idea for marketing. It’s not your fault your employers wanted to become synonymous with those cheap pens with company names on them that nobody pays attention to. I’m sorry that if I don’t lose your pen, your company name will probably end up getting scratched off to near illegibility. I’m sorry that those pens aren’t very good advertising, since most of the time the person who ends up with it has no idea where it came from, and even if they do they don’t care. I’m sorry I don’t like your pen as much as the one I stole from the Berkman center last year.

I’m also sorry that after I wrote “it’s not your fault” above I considered adding the clause “unless you came up with the idea, in which case I’m sorry that you are not very good at marketing, but I congratulate you on finding a way to get paid to hand out pens to college students.” I’m sorry that I’m not going to write out your company name here.

I’m sorry that it wasn’t a terribly good pen. It wouldn’t write for me earlier, when I needed a pen to write on a napkin. It’s one of those cheap Bic pens that has a cap and isn’t even clicky. I’m sorry that I’m probably going to lose that cap the next time I use the pen, and I’m sorry that I’ll probably either let a friend steal it or forget it at a restaurant somewhere. I would say that I am terrible at keeping pens, but that’s not true at all. I’m just terrible at keeping things I don’t care about.

Yours,

RM