Given to young people as an exercise in organization.

The pen would have a mechanism that registers it's with the same owner every time a code is put into it. A readout would show how many years that owner has managed to keep it in their possession.

This is not totally frivolous and silly, (just sort of). Given to a child when they enter school, it would begin to instill in them some measure of organization. If the person can keep track of one of the single most used and tossed aside tools made by man, they may be able to keep other things organized as well.

This would appeal to nerds and geeks who would proudly announce to the attractive gal at the bar "M'lady, I've had this pen since my grandma gave it to me on my 5th birthday." right before she had to go to the "lady's room" from whence she'd never return.

The code would be tapped into a series of two buttons on the side and would possibly replace spinning or tapping as that thing you give your hand to keep it busy while you're reading the document to be signed or otherwise written on.

Of course there's a low tech version of this that just has a date printed on it.
-- doctorremulac3, Oct 26 2018

I would rather have a pen with a motion sensor that would give an odometer reading.

"You have written [75.37 km]"
-- Klaatu, Oct 27 2018


I'd bun that.
-- doctorremulac3, Oct 27 2018


I can do a version of this about pens that have laid untouched on my desk.
-- theircompetitor, Oct 27 2018



random, halfbakery