Government Ceremony
Well the
President of the US was impeached the other day. I don't want to discuss or comment on the impeachment, but what I
found interesting is something I’ve seen many times before and never really
given it much thought.
The signing ceremony.
Nancy Pelosi
signed some historical stuff and for each letter of said signature she used a separate
pen and gave each pen to a person who had, I assume, played a part in what ever
led up to the historical signing. There must have been multiple papers as I counted 33 pens.
I’ve seen
this many times before, usually the President signing important
legislation. Multiple pens on a silver
platter and souvenirs handed out to prominent people. Probably costs the taxpayers an extra couple
of hundred dollars, not even a whisper of moisture in the bucket, and makes for
a nice ceremony rewarding people for a lot of hard work passing the measure.
What caught
my attention as I watched this time, and for some reason never thought of before was…WOW! I would love to own one of those pens.
I have a
dozen ball point pens
RT-are there any other types these
days?
and every
time I use one, I have to first scribble on a piece of paper to get the ink
moving or risk tearing up the paper I am signing.
As I watched
this ceremony, I envisioned them using my pens.
“And so
my fellow Americans I will sign this historical document of impeachment…hmmm it does not seem to be working…(after scratching circles all over
the document) FUCK!...wait, now it is working. Hand me another pen for the next letter
please.”
“Um there
are 32 more letters to go Nancy.”
“Well
lick the damn points, or heat the end with a match! I can’t be scratching circles and ripping the
document, the Senators will send it back!”
“Maybe you
could just finish with the one pen that is working. When you are done, we can mix all the pens in
a hat and hand them out so everyone can claim that they may have the actual signing pen.”
“That
would not be acting very Congressionally!”
Anyway.
Every pen
worked right away. No scratching licking
of heating needed. It all went smoothly
without a hitch. For 33 pens, that is impressive.
It gave me
hope. It is comforting to know that
government officials can do something smoothly.
Our
government representatives can sign stuff without a hitch and in my experience,
that is quite an accomplishment.
Wow. I've seen part of the ceremony on TV but didn't realise the significance or the fact that there were so many pens for the occasion.
ReplyDeleteHaha... everytime I go to the supermarket, my list has an angry scribble at the top! Since I'm not required to sign anything, I should switch to a pencil :)
ReplyDeleteLol, I have never actually purchased a blue or black ink pen in my life. Everywhere I turn, a business hands one to me. Government waste at its best!
ReplyDeleteBefore the ceremony an administrative specialist writes with each pen to ensure that they write smoothly, that way there are no officials scratching at a piece of paper with a pen that doesn't write. Oh yeah, once upon a time I was one of the admin types hmmmm did the pens always work the way we planned...
ReplyDeleteHad to smile at your methods to make a pen write. I do remember those. Somehow that doesn't happen now. If it fails once, I pitch it. Seems every place I go wants to give me a new one which I take.
ReplyDeleteSo I take it the government doesn't buy their pens at the Dollar Store, huh?
ReplyDeleteHere is something you could invent, JoeH, and be very rich. A pen that works EVERY time so you do not need to scratch circles first.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Heh, heh! I never thought of a possible pen failure at such a ceremony. When I was teaching, NOBODY was allowed to touch the pens on my desk. I had a black and a red, which WORKED, and I sure didn't want to lose them. It only took about a week at the beginning of the school year to train the students as to which writing instruments were loaners, and which were OFF LIMITS!
ReplyDeleteThey also had over 20 pens for Clinton's impeachment. They all had to be recalled since the printing on the side of the pen had a typo!
ReplyDeleteHaving a pen that worked every time would be heaven-sent!
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking each of those 33 pens had the scribble test before they were loaded onto the silver platters. As for your dozen pens, toss them out and get new ones, you shouldn't have to scribble holes into the paper just to write a few words. Clearly the ink has dried so much they are now useless. If you bought cheap ones, that's on you. Spend a bit extra and get reliable pens. I do a lot of crosswords and other word puzzles, so I buy my pens in boxes of 50 and they all work. I could send you a few....
ReplyDeleteApparently I suck at satire.
DeleteOops. Really, I got the satire, just went off on my own pen buying tangent.
DeleteI am not sure you watched, she had trouble with more than one pen not working.
ReplyDeleteHahahahaha! That would be fantastic. They should save us some money and click that Bic! My kids were famous for taking a pen out of the cup next to the phone, not being able to get it to write and putting it back in the cup. I'm like just throw it away why would you put it back in there to start that whole scribbling cycle all over again...
ReplyDeletehaha
ReplyDeletethat reminds me school days
i hate ball points because they would show worst shape of my worst hand writing and sometimes it all would happen that you mentioned above
it would seem ball point right in the middle of the sentence would loose it's memory and lost
i hate those ball point i like pointers though