Ink stains.

My Lilly Pulitzer pen that I adore, you know, the pink one? The one I use to write all my important work notes?

Blew up. In my handbag. Barely missing my wallet.

I didn't realize this, naturally, until I was seated across from essentially my boss, at a table, only to find that seven of my fingers were coated in sticky, dark blue ink. Ink is slippery at first, but soaks into ones winter-dry hands rather quickly. Becomes icky in the sticky very quickly. At first, I thought maybe the end was loose, so I kinda of twisted it around, allowing evidently, all the ink to come pouring out of all places in a pen ink can escape. Not pretty. I tried to catch it, not that I had any clue what I would do with a handful of ink, but I did know that ink on khaki pants is not a great plan. I learned something else too.

It doesn't come off.

Not with soap. Or toothpaste, which the lovely lady at a shop I popped into on the ride home told me might work. I used acetone, or nail polish remover - it dulled slightly, but didn't take it off the nails either. Seven digits are blue. The other three might be jealous. Or simply embarrassed by the ink stained other seven.

Plus also? That was my lucky pen.

Jonathan doesn't believe in lucky pens. He believes in any pen that writes; ones that are free? Love those. He'll take any slogan, any company pen, pop it in the nerd pocket, and he's good to go. Luck is what you make of it or something along that line is what he said over lunch - but really? Luck is like faith. You have to believe in that which you cannot see.

I believe in lucky pens.

Lucky pens, I tried to explain, are confidence, in Lilly Pulitzer pink; it's girly, yet still professional, so I can use it in any meeting. I'm not worried about it getting stolen; I'm the only Lilly Snob I know, so it'd be easy to locate it, should anyone just happen to wander off holding it in their grubby paws. Most importantly, however, it was comfortable to write with - none of that third finger pinching that some of those cheapy pens inspire. No hand cramps, as the barrel isn't too small or too big; did I mention, it's pink? And girly? And lucky?

I feel naked without it.

Sort of like Dumbo and his feather - sure, he gets it at some point, that he doesn't need it to fly, but he feels like he does. Not, mind you, that I'm comparing myself to a baby elephant - there are some very clear distinctions: I don't do feathers. They make me sneeze, birds carry all sorts of ugly germs, my ears are cute and adorable, not big and flappy. My best friends do not, in any way resemble crows, though one does enjoy wearing a vest; we do not, no matter how many may disagree with us, belong in a circus. Just because we're the Lucy and Ethel of our town, doesn't mean we belong in a circus. Sadly, the saggy skin on Dumbo's ass? How his "pants" sort of bag on the top of the thigh? So he can grow an ass into them?

Yeah, my pants do that too.

Hmmmm.

Damn.

I resemble a stupid baby elephant that needs a lucky feather to hoist his baggy ass off the ground to do what he's supposed to do.

No matter what J says.

That pen was lucky.

So what if I placed my faith in something tangible, pink, girly - something so me - my talisman of faith in myself. Men get their balls.

I can have my Lilly pen.