Editing The Pen Addict 381/transcript (section)

== Subbing Job Horror ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' I recently started a job as a high school substitute teacher. Hall of Fame! There we go. We did it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Subbing is kind of boring, as I'm not actually teaching the kids anything, just giving them busy work. I discovered that letter writing is a great way to stave off this boredom. It looks professional. And I'm able to monitor the class without going absolutely stir-crazy. Nice work. Today, I didn't have time to ink up the pen I wanted to use, a Waterman Hemisphere, before I left the house. So I threw a bottle of Diamine Purple Pizazz, that's the one with the gold shimmer, in my bag. During first period, I shook the ink bottle to distribute the shimmer and uncapped to ink the pen. This is where things started to go wrong. Drops of ink had somehow gotten all over the bottle when I shook it, and by opening the bottle and filling the pen, I got bright purple ink of gold sparkle all over my fingers and on my white pen. The classroom didn't have any paper towels or tissues, and it was out in a trailer, so I couldn't easily run to the bathroom to wash my hands without leaving the class unattended for a substantial length of time. That feels like a bad idea. There was a bottle of hand sanitizer, so I thought, why not, and gave it a while. This turned out to be the exact wrong decision. I'd love to know what the kids are thinking at this point, like watching this teacher just, like, getting up to stuff. Instead of removing the ink, it spread the ink all over my hands, turning them completely purple. There were also some Clorox wipes in the room, so I used a few of those to get off some of the ink, but my hands were still noticeably purple. This is fine, I thought. High school students are too tired to pay attention to what color my hands are anyway. Nope. The first student I collected their work from asked why my hands were all purple. I told them I had an incident with a pen, and it was the ink. Luckily, most students are familiar with pen explosions, so they were sympathetic. Every class asked about my purple hands throughout the day. The purple did not come off after several rounds of hand washing, dishwashing, and a shower once I got home. Somehow, I managed to not get ink on the teacher's desk, but I did get some drops on the attendant sheets.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I adore this story. It's a great story. High school students are jerks, right? Just in general. You just generally assume this is going to go poorly. That's where I thought we were going with this. Yeah, so I appreciate that they had some sense to go, okay, I get it. But the fact that I would have done the exact same thing if I was in Sarah's situation, like started to go, okay, well, let's go for this hand sanitizer. You know, I can't run to the bathroom. You know, I'm out in the trailer, you know, out in the back lot somewhere. And, you know, well, this will at least help. And then actually probably turned her hands more purple or at least spread the ink all over. I wouldn't have thought that. I would have done the same thing. But I guess the hand sanitizer and the alcohol in it, I guess it's just going to spread that around as soon as you start rubbing it, which now that's good to know. I didn't think of it that way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Golly. Not a Hall of Famer, but I love this story because... I think it could have gotten there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, it's good that it didn't. It's good that it didn't, yeah. Right? Like, it could have been worse, like knocking, like messing up some other teacher's room, kids being kids. But like, even though like you're a substitute teacher and you're like the person, the authority figure in the room, when you're not their normal authority figure, you have this like weird tinge of like, I just want to like not make a fool of myself in front of these high schoolers who, you know, are, you know, this isn't like preschool where they wouldn't care. Right? These high schoolers are, can be mean and vicious. And I would be beet red and sweating buckets if I did this in this situation. So it sounds like Sarah handled it as well as possible. Not quite Hall of Fame level.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I agree. All right. We've had three great stories so far. We still have a few more for the rest of this episode. Why don't we take a break first and thank our sponsor, which is Squarespace. You can make your next move with Squarespace. They will let you easily create the website that you want for your next idea, for your next project, for your online store, maybe for your event that you've got coming up, maybe for a social group that you're a part of, maybe you have a portfolio or a blog that you want to get out to the world. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform that will let you do any of these things and so much more. They have award-winning, beautiful templates which are wonderfully customizable so you can make your website look exactly how you want. And they have the ability for you to grab a unique domain name for your website as well. There's nothing to install or patch or upgrade. They take care of all of that stuff so you don't have to worry. And they back everything up with 24-7 customer support. Their customer support is award-winning. They win a lot of awards at Squarespace because their product is amazing. I've used them for so many years and continue to. When I think about building a website, I think about going to Squarespace. And you should too. Go try it out right now. There's no credit card required to do so. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict. Their plans start at just $12 a month and you can get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain by using the offer code penaddict at checkout. You'll also be showing your support for this show by going to squarespace.com slash penaddict and using the code penaddict for 10% of your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. Let's keep this going. My, I'm just, I've been grinning from ear to ear. I love these stories. I appreciate you all sending in these stories. I love them. Keep them coming. You can email them to hello at penaddict.com. I'm putting horror stories in the subject line and we will get to them at some point. It may be next Halloween, next October when we need them, but maybe before, you never know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This isn't maybe before horror stories, the spooky time come at any time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's right. And when you send them to me, they get filed. So I don't read them until this show. So, you know, you just have to wait and see when it comes up. Like Evan, who after the chatter about horror stories on the Twitch stream, I thought I'd finally type up for you my recent fountain pen experience, which I've titled the Emerald Curse. It started with a good deed, but no good deed goes unpunished. My wife isn't a pen person. She likes nice things and pretty things, and she definitely appreciates a few of the pens and a couple of the shades of ink in my collection, but she's not really interested in any of it for herself. In an experience that I'm sure is common for many pen addicts and their spouses, she humors me, which is why when she excitedly sent me a Facebook link to a calligraphy video titled something along the lines of, check out this amazing color changing ink. I was taken by how much she seemed to be generally interested by the ink, not just sending me something she thought I would like. The video itself was just footage of the J'herbal Emerald of Chavor drying on coated calligraphy paper. I thought, if my wife is so interested, surely I can buy her a bottle of Chavor. So on my next trip to the pen store, I did just that. I cleaned out my TWSBI Go because I thought the 1.1 italic nib and demonstrator barrel would suit a pretty shimmer ink. I think that's a good choice. And surprised my wife by telling her that I bought her a bottle of the color changing ink, all her own, and picked out a pen for her to use that would really show it off. While she sat in the living room, attending to our toddler daughter, I took the ink and pen into the kitchen to fill. I carefully laid out paper towels under the bottle for drips and blotting, shook the bottle a bit to get the glitter floating, and filled. I capped the bottle quickly to avoid any mishap and then turned my attention to the pen. As I was in the midst of blotting the nib and section and screwing the blind cap barrel onto the back of the TWSBI Go, the pen slipped out of my hands. The nib was fine. Somehow every pen I've ever dropped, the nib has been fine. That's good luck right there. If that is my secret superpower, useless as it might be in the scheme of superpowers, I'll accept it. What wasn't fine, however, was the linoleum floor, which was now a shade of blue-green with flecks of gold. My wife, two rooms away and around a corner, asked what the sound was and was satisfied with the answer, nothing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, that's not true.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, that's a problem right there, Evan. That might come back to haunt you. Speckles of ink were all down the side of the counter, cabinets, the stool, and even somehow on top of the counter. I took to scrubbing, thankful that the pattern of the linoleum was busy enough to hide a potential tent. The ink on my own feet, I figured I could play off because when I don't have a little, when don't I have a little bit of ink on me somewhere. I knew that if my wife had seen the scale of the initial spill, regardless of how easy it was cleaned up, I'd be barred from filling pens in the kitchen anymore, maybe even in the house entirely. Every time I thought I was done scrubbing, I would find a new spot. Finally, I finished, certain that I had covered the entire area and the only ink left was on me. I returned to the living room and as expected, answered for the teal splotch on my own foot. I was barred from putting my feet up on the ottoman for the rest of the night, but I figured that was a small price to pay for what had occurred. And then my daughter toddled back in from the kitchen herself and my wife asked me what was that spot on her leg. Since that day, already a few months ago, four or five times, my daughter has turned up with spots of blue-green on her arms and or legs while in the kitchen. I'm running out of excuses and speculation to respond with when my wife notices. I have hunted for any trace of the ink, which should have been long dried by now, and I can't find it anywhere. Like a protagonist in an Edgar Allan Poe tale, albeit one with much lower stakes, I am haunted by this spill. Worse still, the ghost of Ink Spill's past has chosen my precious child as its target rather than myself. There is an emerald curse upon my kitchen evermore.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The end of that really got me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is so well written.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's the end of that really swung it for me, Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The issue is, well, not the issue, but the the the selling point is the child keeps getting attacked by the ink when she sets foot in the kitchen. It's almost like it's haunted, like he's calling it the emerald curse, and he can't find it, but it's like the more I think about it, the more creepy it gets. like the kitchen's been scoured, and the daughter, who is too young to know any difference, continually finds ink to attach to her somehow.

'''Myke Hurley:''' like a protagonist in an Edgar Allan Poe tale, I am haunted by the spill. Worse still, the ghost of ink spills past has chosen my precious child as its target rather than myself. There is an emerald curse upon my kitchen evermore. look, I'm being biased, that wins it for me, man. I think you write it like that, it is a crazy thing to have happened. It's a spill. We love a spill as a horror story. But is that the real horror? No, but it wasn't a catastrophic spill, like it wasn't a whole bottle. No, it's a,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' we've all done this spill.