Happiness in My Mailbox

Yesterday I got maybe one of the most fun things I've ever gotten in my mailbox: pens from a complete stranger!

Remember that silly blog post I wrote two and a half years ago about my crazy obsession with Cello pens and my quest to find more? It has kind of taken on a life of its own. Fifty comments, more than any other post I've written except Elijah's birth announcement (which was before Facebook really exploded--Jude's birth didn't generate near the comments here on the blog). My post is the number-one Google hit for "cello silke pens," and I still get searchers weekly. Even though it's from November 2009, that post consistently gets more pageviews than any other individual post. Really crazy.

Seriously, go check out the comments on that post--it's a riot. Apparently I'm not the only pen-obsessed nut; these pens appear to have a cult following. So I get comment after comment from all these random strangers thanking me profusely for helping them find their beloved pens. That was as far as it went, until I got an email a couple of months ago from a girl (woman? I have no idea) named Hanaa. She noticed that my local Big Lots had only carried the black/blue/red Cello pens, not the pretty pastel ones, and she offered to send me a pack of the pastels as a token of thanks for all the people I had helped.

I had forgotten about it until I opened my mailbox yesterday and found a surprise package.

A whole pack of my favorite ballpoint pens in pink, purple, blue, yellow and green (all black ink), plus two extra pens Hanaa loves, and a sweet note. I'm still smiling about it. Really, how fun is that?

Thanks, Hanaa!