Editing The Pen Addict 656/transcript (section)

== Personal Journey into Stationery ==

* When did you first fall in love with stationery? I got to know. I got to ask all my friends, like, how did this begin? Like, did this start when you were a kid? Or did this come later in life, like school or later, even later in life, you know, like post-school or, you know, workforce? So when did your love for stationery, when did you realize that was a thing?
* Such a hard question, Brad, I think. Well, you know, when you sent me over a few questions, I started thinking and going back, like, when did it happen? And I can kind of remember, like, in elementary school when my dad bought my brother and myself some metallic gel pens and a notebook with black paper. And that was kind of the first coolest thing we had seen ever. And then sometimes you could write with the gel pen and then erase it. And then instead of it being glittery, it became like a solid color. So it was my first experience with, like, I was like, what is going on here? And then he, like, also back then in elementary school, he would, he bought us rolling backpacks. So, of course, like we had to carry our cool new supplies, right? So there was nothing in there, but like our black little notebook with my metallic gel pens. And then, like, going through, because I don't remember much besides just pencils and paper. In fifth grade, it was when I was in elementary school in the United States because I moved to the U.S. when I, in the middle of fifth grade. So I was, what, 10 or 11 years old. And just seeing loose paper to me was such a weird concept. Really? Yes, it was just, in Mexico, every subject had its separate notebook. And personally, I would never tear out a page. Just that was blasphemy to me.
* Respect your notebooks, respect your paper. So that was the first time when I would see kids just like, you know, they messed up on a page and just toss it up and throw it away. I'm like, what is going on? What's happening?
* And then that was also my introduction to binders. I had never seen a binder before. So that was kind of cool. I was like, what is this accessory?
* And also, I can't remember the way I would carry my utensils. But for some reason, seeing a little plastic box or plastic case with your little pencils and pens, that was the coolest thing to me. Yeah, I love the little boxes and the kind of the Ziplocs that you would clip into your binder, right? You had to have like the three ring binder baggies type of situation with the little zipper that would fail like pretty soon. And you toss your stuff all over the floor. Sure. And, you know, that was a mess. So at some point, I imagine this escalated beyond loose leaf paper binders. I don't know. You never get past the black paper and bright gel pens. Like we don't get past that. That stays with us. That kind of thing stays. But when did you kind of think, oh, like, you know, I found a pen that's a little bit different than I like or I found a notebook, you know, maybe I maybe you just want to journal later in life or something like that. Did you was there like a turning point later in life where you like found something new?
* I think it was definitely now like fast forward a lot of years. It was definitely in college because I enrolled in this interior design program. And with my art classes, they requested a bunch of art supplies and things like that. And in my studio classes, they requested all these crazy utensils that I had never heard of. Like I was like, why do we need a micron pen? And, you know, I didn't even know how to pronounce the things. So I would just go to the store. Yeah. I have like a few of them now. I get it. So Eric and I are talking on video. Eric literally has the Securipig Micron in his hand. I have the Uni pen, which is the same like the fineliner. So, yeah, sorry. Go ahead. No, you're fine. But that was when I realized that there's more to life than pencils and like ballpoints. Right.
* And so they gave us a list of so many pens. And I was like, why do we need a specific pen for just one project for the entire semester? Anyway, I didn't get it. But I got them because it was required. Like we had all these skinny lead pens, like lead holders. All the all the erasers you could find. Wow. Tomboy erasers. So they were they were really good, you know. So that was when I started exploring the world of stationery and art supplies in general. Yeah. I don't think I gosh, I'll have to check now that my kids are getting college age. Like I would doubt we would get like a really intense brand specific, you know, like supply sheet like that. Like microns, all these sizes, lead holders, all these sizes, tomboy erasers, you know, these types and just on and on and on. That's yeah, that I'm just thinking. Yeah. I don't know if that would happen these days. I'll have to if anyone if anyone's in college, college age and doing like design, art, architecture, engineering classes. Let me know if you have like a really like are you at engineering class and they're telling you you got to get like the full set of all the tips of repeatographs like these days. Like I don't know if that happens anymore. That's cool. I kind of hope so because it was kind of discovering that. But then it also got really expensive, like really, really quick. So then you're more careful with your supplies. Right. And then like you don't know what you're getting. So you don't have the information to go somewhere else. I'm like, well, I'm going to get this because I think it's similar. You just don't know. Right. So it is what it is. And you got all the supplies from the list. Yeah. That's why the college bookstores were so popular for us stationery lovers back in the day because they would stock the thing for this list. Yes. And it was just so it's just endless cool stuff. And now it's just like I go to like, you know, my daughter's in college and I'm like looking around. I was like, where's the notebooks? Where's the pens? And it's like, it's not too much. Not too much fun. Not as much fun as I had back in school going to the college bookstore. Sure.