cracked: an imperfect analogy, but an analogy, nonetheless...

So last year for my birthday I got a wonderful and totally unmerited gift: a Namiki retractable fountain pen. I wrote about it here. It was something that I coveted for a long time (looking longingly at the display in the pen store, but never actually doing anything illegal or unethical to obtain one), but never hoped to have. (Well, maybe I did hope, a little, but it was kind of a "pie-in-the-sky", "stars-in-your-eyes" sort of hope.)

Lately my wonderful Namiki fountain pen has been doing an annoying thing. I'll be writing along and suddenly the whole thing will pop apart. It's annoying, and it's embarrassing too, say, if you're sitting at a preaching seminar with about 300 people and suddenly the bottom of your pen flies through the air as if it were a mini rocket.

So, I took it to the pen store, seeing if there might be a solution to my problem.

The clerk noticed something that I never had: the pen casing had developed a tiny crack. She did not think it was fixable, and even so, they did not do repairs at this store. But, she said, I could contact the company if I wanted to. She gave me their website.

On Saturday, I sent them an email.

On Monday, I got this piece of news, from a woman named "Melissa", a representative of the company:

"This model Namiki Vanishing Point pen was discontinued in 1999. Unfortunately, there are no remaining pens ore replacements in parts. Please let me know if you wish us to replace your pen with our current model as shown on our website..... in the color of black, blue, red, and green. This is at no charge to you."

I can get a new pen! At no charge!

Of course, there is a catch. I have to send the old one back. They said to make sure to send it back in a way where it can be tracked (I assume to make sure it arrives at its destination.)

Of course, I suppose there is the possibility that they might not send me a new pen, after all. I would need to trust "Melissa's" word in this. And I do love this pen, so I suppose I could just tape it at the crack and keep trying to use it, and apologizing every time it rockets off, and hope that I can find all the parts.

But, I'm thinking: red.

Product Placement

I got some lovely presents a few weeks ago at my birthday party. But one of them was a complete surprise. A friend of my husband and mine stopped by late in the afternoon with a card and an apology for her lateness. Everyone else had already gone home.

When I opened the card, there was some tissue paper inside. There was also a pen. And not just any pen. It was a Namiki retractable fountain pen.

I love pens. I have loved pens ever since I was a little girl, and I wanted my mom and dad to get me the 12 pack of pens you could get for Christmas at the local Woolworth's store. One of my high school teachers suggested that I switch from ball point pens to fountain pens long ago (this was before gel pens and roller balls were even a gleam in someone's imagination). I do have one fountain pen, a Lamy brand, which I consider affordable. And I have looked at the Namiki pens when we trek over to our local pen store, usually to pick up refills. But I have never dared to hope that I would ever actually own a Namiki retractable fountain pen. It is a luxury beyond my means.

Our friend had filled up the little cartridge (called a bladder) with a kind of blue-ish black ink. She showed me how to do this, for when I would want to refill it myself. But I didn't have any ink or cartridges yet.

Sunday I ran out of ink, so we went over to the pen store to get some bottled ink and some cartridges. We discovered that the pen lacked something like a 'cartridge cover' needed when you use a cartridge rather than bottled ink. Since it is an older model pen, he didn't have any replacements in the store.

So today I called the company, and explained my dilemma. She asked whether I could get a replacement locally. I named our store, and said that they didn't have any on hand. "Oh, that's too bad," she said. "Why don't I send you a complementary one?" And she took my name and address. She also gave me some good websites that I could go to for information about their products.

I told my husband, "That was one of the most pleasant conversations I have ever had with customer service."

After a moment, he replied, "It's because they think we're rich."

I'll bet Rolls Royce customers get pretty good customer service, too.