Comment by dheera

> I realize this all probably sounds very silly to someone born before 1980

I was born after 1980 and I think you're beating a dead horse, here. You're conflating accessibility with convenience. Not just with this comment, but others you've made in this thread.

> those goddamn BIC pens all go bad (ink dries up or something), before I use even 5% of one of them.

Grab the pen by the end opposite the nib, give it a good shake for a few seconds, lick the nib, scribble on a scrap piece of paper until it starts writing again. Problem solved. You can't resurrect a dead laptop or computer by licking and shaking it (at least I've never succeeded in doing so).

> I mean, part of the problem is I didn't own a pen at the time.

I find this mind-boggling.

I immediately came up with a parallel -- "they wanted me to walk to the counter but I do not own shoes."

Which took me to the universe of Pixar's _Wall-E_ and now I can't help but imagine that the subset of "people born after 1980" are helpless in their floating chairs and apparently I am aberrant because I learned to walk, and that makes me old.

Oh, i absolutely get you! Was not intending to pen-shame you in any way. Just used it to illustrate that the postal process worked (eventually, and with a lot of inconvenience) even though you were not best prepared for it.

But i have been exactly where you are. We were having a book club and trying to vote on the next book to read, and turns out none of us out of twenty literature loving people had a single pen on us. So yeah, that is for sure the current reality.

> usually I just end up drawing a cat on the signature line.

Thats awesome! Do the they accept it usually?

You are intentionally making things difficult when you don't own a pen.

That's very much your problem, and the rest of the world doesn't need to accommodate it.

Your life sounds positively exhausting.

Bravo! I cannot tell if this is a satire of something. Can some explain the joke, if any?