I’ll Let You Know

Well, I know that no one will give a tinkers damn about this, but the pens I ordered from China arrived today. It took 17 days to make it here from China and as I mentioned before, the cost of the three pens and shipping was $6.60. From China!!!

 

I mailed a small package the other day to Toronto and it cost about $16 dollars. I found out today that the postal outlet where I mailed the package over charged me by about $7. There is no way to prove it was malicious, but I will never use that particular outlet again. I have heard that you can pay more for mailing the same sized package at one outlet and less at another. The rates are standardized, but I guess the clerks aren’t. Who would have thought that if you pay people minimum wage they won’t give a shit about their job?  I knew that privatizing the postal outlets was a bad idea. Good business for Canada Post and the owners of the outlets, but not so much for you and I.

The pens came wrapped in a page from a Chinese newspaper. Well, it looked like Chinese, but it could be from any country that uses a character based alphabet. One page was newsprint and the other looked to be either a page from an instruction booklet or a page from one of those “EYES ONLY” secret files. I suspect it is from an instruction booklet because on the front page is what appears to be a cartoon genie, an angel and a ghostie looking guy with two candles on his head. Mind you, perhaps the Chinese secret service has a quirky sense of humour; it never pays to take yourself too seriously.

The company (Hero Pen Company) included a rainbow coloured pencil free of charge. I haven’t used it yet, but I do look forward to the experience. You know, I thought that giving a free pencil was a pretty cool thing to do initially and I was going to make a comment to that effect on my feedback comment. However, I began to wonder if I should. For all I know, sending a rainbow pencil could be one of the workers means of silent protest against the government’s treatment of homosexuals. If I made the comment it might not go well with the rainbow worker. It could be that the worker was trying to steal the pencil for his kids and felt that security was on to his thieving ways and the only way he could protect himself was to wrap the pencil up with the pens. It could be that this particular worker was being paid minimum wage and didn’t give a shit about his job.

Personally, I don’t care why I got a freebie pencil, I just know that Hurricane and or Tornado will have fun until it breaks or I have to take it away from them. The pens work quite well, once I figured out how to get ink into them. It has been a number of years since last I filled a fountain pen, but it appears that I haven’t forgotten how to get ink all over my fingers. Oh, and some into the pen as well.

My plan is to learn to write with a flourish, so that when I send someone a card or letter they will not only treasure it because it is from me, but because it is a work of art. I’ll let you know how that unfolds…