My favorite writing instrument is the old-fashioned Bic pen. (I’m not sure why pens are called writing instruments, since no matter how hard I try, I can’t play a single note with one.) The official name is the Bic Cristal, and it has a clear plastic hexagonal tube with a blue or red plastic cap on the end. The pen is inexpensive and reliable, and for me, it fits very comfortably in my hand.
Bic Cristal pens have not changed at all since I first started using them, way back in the 5th grade in 1967. I can’t think of a single consumer product that has remained unchanged for such a long time.
Compare, for example, coffee makers in 1967 to coffee makers today. It’s not like I drank a whole lot of coffee in the 5th grade, but I vaguely remember those old silver metal percolators. They didn’t have timers or clocks or computerized push-button controls. The only “push” involved was pushing the short electrical cord into the wall socket, which caused the lights in the kitchen to dim. And of course, there were no Keurig machines back then, because in 1967 the fashionable way to ruin the environment was to dump a bunch of rusty old Buicks into landfills rather than fill up trash bags with zillions of little plastic coffee pods.
Have telephones changed much since 1967? Um yeah, quite a bit. Back then the rotary dial phones were mounted onto the wall, and you could get them in any color you wanted, as long as it was black. Nowadays, phones are fancy little computers in our pockets with countless applications, one of which is the telephone app — and if someone calls us without first sending a text to let us know they’re going to call, we get angry.
How about footwear? In 1967 we wore Converse All-Star sneakers, the exact same sneakers worn by college and NBA stars. Good ol’ “Cons” are an amazing feat (feat? Get it? Feet?) of engineering. Take a thin slice of rubber, connect it to an even thinner piece of canvas, add some laces, and voilà! You have a basketball shoe that gives the same level of support and cushioning as if you wrapped your feet with Kleenex. On the other hand (or foot), today’s basketball shoes use space-age polymer foam, firm leather, lots of thick padding, and when you lace those babies up, it’s like your foot is encased in a ski boot. Although today’s Nike “Air Jordan” and Adidas “Harden” models cost as much as a 1967 Buick, they are a million times more comfortable than Converse All-Stars.
Have telephones changed much since 1967? Um yeah, quite a bit. Back then the rotary dial phones were mounted onto the wall, and you could get them in any color you wanted, as long as it was black. Nowadays, phones are fancy little computers in our pockets with countless applications, one of which is the telephone app — and if someone calls us without first sending a text to let us know they’re going to call, we get angry.
How about footwear? In 1967 we wore Converse All-Star sneakers, the exact same sneakers worn by college and NBA stars. Good ol’ “Cons” are an amazing feat (feat? Get it? Feet?) of engineering. Take a thin slice of rubber, connect it to an even thinner piece of canvas, add some laces, and voilà! You have a basketball shoe that gives the same level of support and cushioning as if you wrapped your feet with Kleenex. On the other hand (or foot), today’s basketball shoes use space-age polymer foam, firm leather, lots of thick padding, and when you lace those babies up, it’s like your foot is encased in a ski boot. Although today’s Nike “Air Jordan” and Adidas “Harden” models cost as much as a 1967 Buick, they are a million times more comfortable than Converse All-Stars.
Here are other consumer products that also have improved dramatically since 1967: televisions, washing machines, automobiles, eyeglasses, wristwatches, radios, and medical testing equipment. It seems inconceivable to me if every product in the world has improved in the last half century, then why is the Bic Cristal pen exactly the same?
I suppose the folks at Bic would answer my question with a question: “Why tinker with perfection?”
Well, that’s the reply I would expect from a clever marketing executive, and I wouldn’t be using Bic pens all these decades later if they weren’t really good, but there is plenty of room for improvement. For example, when I misspell a word using a Bic pen, the pen does nothing to alert me. A spell-check function would be a cool feature, don’t you think?
I suppose the folks at Bic would answer my question with a question: “Why tinker with perfection?”
Well, that’s the reply I would expect from a clever marketing executive, and I wouldn’t be using Bic pens all these decades later if they weren’t really good, but there is plenty of room for improvement. For example, when I misspell a word using a Bic pen, the pen does nothing to alert me. A spell-check function would be a cool feature, don’t you think?
Also, if they’re going to call the pen a writing instrument, it would be nice if I could play music with it. Nothing fancy, of course. But if I could sound like Clarence Clemons on the saxophone, that would be pretty cool.
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