I acquired my first Parker Jotter when I was about 14 years old when I found one in a drawer somewhere in my house. I thought it was very cool. It was metal, it clicked pretty loudly and it looked sort of like a plane, if you squinted at it the right way. I took it with me to school and did all my work with it until I lost it after about a year. I went about two years using pretty standard plastic ballpoint pens, all the while rueing the loss of my beautiful, metal, loudly-clicking pen.
My much more responsible 18 year old self acquired one exactly like in the picture (my first had a silver clip). I now appreciate this pen for more than its hefty click. It has long, sleek lines that ignore the fact that it is a simple pen and aspire to be a rocket ship, or a glider, or something along those lines. To be honest, I think I prefer it with the silver clip, but they didn’t have one in the store when I was there. The arrow shaped clip is in keeping with the long sleek design of the barrel of the pen and it is definitely a very effective clip.
My pen has become my travel companion, I use it for filling out landing cards and writing notes on trans-Pacific flights, often being lent to other travelers stranded in the air without a pen. Of course, this is in addition to the Macbook-Sidekick role that it plays when I’m at Harvard.
