The Mighty Pen of the House of Mouse

I work in a team full of stationery geeks.

... and I mean that in the nicest possible way. If it's different from the cheap and nasty ordinary office supplies we've got it, and almost always paid for it ourselves.

Beautifully bound notebooks from Heals/Paperchase/Borders? check.

Non-yellow post-it notes? Check.

Colour co-ordinated in-trays? check.

Dispensers of those neat little post-it things that mark pages in books/magazines etc? check.

Clear ink that's actually black when it comes out of the nib? check.

Violet/turquoise/copper inked fine nib gel pens? check.

So given the diversity of all of our tastes and our love for unusual writing implements, it was highly entertaining to realise during a meeting yesterday that we're all using the same type of pen, and have been for the last couple of months.

Y'see, at the beginning of July, my boss went to a conference which was held at Walt Disney World in Florida.

She didn't get much time to actually enjoy the facilities on offer, but did manage to find the time to bring us all back a present.

The present?

A Walt Disney World pen. A cheap and cheerful, Disney-characterised, plastic-bodied, pedestrian black rollerball.

Since then, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald have worked their sneaky Disney way onto our desks and into our grasp every time we need to write.

If I'm honest I'm not sure what amazes me more - the fact that four stationery freaks have consistently used the same pen (and a fairly ordinary black rollerball at that!) for a two month period, or the fact that the four respective pens haven't been nicked from the desks in the meantime.