I do understand the concept of chaining down a pen

[Ginevra]

And it's really beginning to have some appeal. Where in the bloody heck do all the pens go around here? At this point, *someone* has got to have about 48 nice pens in his or her truck, car, desk, backpack or drawer. Or something. Once again, the pen cups in the kitchen have been whittled down to: a dried out marker, a highlighter pen, a letter opener, four pencils with no point, a Crayola colored pencil in Snot Green, a lipliner, and a pen that writes in purple ink. I refuse to buy more of these boogers until someone divests himself of all the squirrelled pens.

 

Hrumpf.

[Tap]

Pay the kids for them.  10 cents each adds up pretty fast for little ones, it may take a quarter for the older kids. You will be amazed how many they can come up with in an hour. LOL

Edited February 28, 2017 by Tap

[AK_Mom4]

Mine get stolen by the cat.

 

I believe he hides most of them under the stove these days. When we replaced the kitchen floor a few years ago, we found over a hundred pens under there.

 

But I wouldn't put it past th cat to be selling pens on the black market.

[sassenach]

My mom works in an office of mostly men. She was having such a hard time with her pens disappearing until she discovered the power of pink. She buys pink pens and now they never disappear. 

[Guest]

My mom works in an office of mostly men. She was having such a hard time with her pens disappearing until she discovered the power of pink. She buys pink pens and now they never disappear.

I used this strategy for good scissors. I can usually find my pink floral scissors.

[lavender's green]

I once found 40 pens in a floor vent. Toddlers... :glare:

[dirty ethel rackham]

Ours end up in the couch cushions.  I once was leading a class and a couple of kids decided to show the class what a lousy housekeeper I was ... or maybe they were looking for loose change.  15 pens/pencils later I had to move them to the hard dining room chairs. 

[Miss Tick]

I just pulled 8 pencils it from behind the piano. (we lose those faster than pens)

[Katy]

Check the pants in the laundry pile.  DH alone usually has two pens in every pair.

[SebastianCat]

I must be REALLY tired.   I read the thread title to say, "I do understand the concept of chaining down a PET"

and thought, Wow, this is going to get heated really fast!

 

No help on the pens.   We lose them here by the gross.

Edited February 28, 2017 by SebastianCat

[AnnE-girl]

My husband always brings a pocket full of pens home from his office. We have an entire pen cup full of pens with his firm's logo. I try to get him to put the pens he sets on his dresser when he gets home back in his pocket to take back the next morning, but it rarely happens. I have given friends who ask about legal stuff pens from his firm that have made their way into my purse, so he's gotten business from them.

[Guest]

I bought a very minimal Gotta Have Tool Box. All handles are pink or wrapped with pink duct tape. I have labeled them with my name.

 

My dh has every tool ever manufactured -- and top quality (unlike my cheap I set) -- but he can never find them so he's always taking my tools from my box...but the pink handles (or red-eyed glare from me) always remind him to put them back.

 

I got my son a boxed set from IKEA. So now we are all happy, if somewhat cramped in the garage due to so many unfindable tools!!!

[Mbelle]

We have so many pencils in the couch!  Also, everyone in our family knows I keep a pen in my wallet, so they just take and then not put it back..  It makes me so dang mad!

[xixstar]

We chained a pair of scissors to the knife block in the kitchen, so I am not opppsed to chaining down a pen if needed. Ours vanish too.

[DesertBlossom]

we suffer from the same problem. It is especially maddening to be sitting down with a child who had a pencil, and hadn't even moved from his chair, and somehow lost it. Nowhere to be found. Where do they go? We have pencil trolls around here or something. 

[chocolatechip]

I swear they grow legs and walk off. Seriously. What other explanation could there be??  :svengo:

[Farrar]

Only to be watched if you appreciate the Kids in the Hall...

 

 

My pen! My pen! Has anyone seen my pen?

[freesia]

I bought large pink and purple pens and announced--these are mine. If I see you with them I will know. Since three of my kids wouldn't be caught dead with s pink or purple pen and the other is very compliant, I always know where my pens are. It's bliss.

 

As for their pens. I let them worry about that.

 

I have enough to worry about wondering why the pencils look like someone snapped the tops off every night! Could it be the cat? Some strange bug?

Edited March 1, 2017 by freesia

[Ravin]

I have an office pen redistribution habit. I will go to the secretary's desk to log something, pick up a pen from the drawer there (we don't currently have a secretary, so it's a station rather than an individual's territory at present), and write down what I need to in the log...then walk back to my office with it. My desk accumulates pens which I put in my drawer when I tidy up.

 

At the same time, when I go to court, I have a tendency to set down/hand off/drop or whatever and lose pens, such that I almost always have to add pens from my desk to my briefcase.

 

Eventually we're going to get a new secretary and I'm sure I'll drive them mad stealing their pens. As it is, every other week or so I have to go get another box of pens from the supply closet to replenish the supply in the secretary's desk.

[Tanaqui]

My mom works in an office of mostly men. She was having such a hard time with her pens disappearing until she discovered the power of pink. She buys pink pens and now they never disappear. 

 

I know of somebody who carefully labeled all their office supplies with the word "MINE", using a label maker. At the end of the day, they walked around the office, taking things back. "Mine. Mine. MINE!"

 

Three days later, nobody ever took any of their things again.

[Janie Grace]

I must be REALLY tired.   I read the thread title to say, "I do understand the concept of chaining down a PET"

and thought, Wow, this is going to get heated really fast!

 

No help on the pens.   We lose them here by the gross.

 

Me too. And I read it that way about four times until I finally opened the thread thinking, "really?! Not just chaining the pet in your yard (bad enough) but chaining it DOWN???"

[Bambam]

When I worked, I got tired of people removing my pen. So I bought a bright red pen. I never 'lost' that pen again. So find a bright/loud/unusual color and that is your pen. If someone else has it, it will be obvious. 

 

I bought different mechanical pencils for everyone in our family. So, if you have mine or I have yours, we both know it. 

[KungFuPanda]

I put fake flowers on mine like at the bank, but I put nicer flowers and arranged them in a vase in the kitchen. They're harder to lose, have a home, and nobody wants to leave the house with them. I think they've been there for about 4 years. I use them daily and my bouquet looks nice and full.

Edited March 1, 2017 by KungFuPanda

[gaillardia]

We haven't lost them too often even though they are in places where they don't belong. My big problem is always misplacing my reading glasses, especially on top of my head or hanging off the front of my shirt. Wouldn't it be easier if I just got one of those old lady things that hangs around the neck to attach my glasses to?

 

I obviously am tired. i cannot write right tonight.

Edited March 1, 2017 by Gaillardia

[greenbeanmama]

Pay the kids for them.  10 cents each adds up pretty fast for little ones, it may take a quarter for the older kids. You will be amazed how many they can come up with in an hour. LOL

 

This is genius!  I must try this to find all those blasted Nerf darts that are all over the house.  It's not that I can't find them.  I find them EVERYWHERE!  Every room, every corner and crevice.  But a paid pick up service sounds so much better than my finding them over and over again.  They never make it back to the bin before someone snags the half-pile I have started...and they shoot them all over the house again. 

[happypamama]

This is genius! I must try this to find all those blasted Nerf darts that are all over the house. It's not that I can't find them. I find them EVERYWHERE! Every room, every corner and crevice. But a paid pick up service sounds so much better than my finding them over and over again. They never make it back to the bin before someone snags the half-pile I have started...and they shoot them all over the house again.

I've concluded that Nerf darts multiply faster than LEGO. They don't hurt to step on, but they land higher.

 

The pens. Oh the pens. At my house, either my 12yo set them somewhere and forgot where, this necessitating a need for more, or my 5yo squirreled them away in the table/desk he uses as an office for all of his (many many many) drawings.

[MercyA]

This thread title confuses me every time I see it. I am easily confused.  :)

[ashfern]

Mine is scissors. I have 4 kitchen scissors and can never find one when I need them. Every time my kids ask to borrow my office scissors I tell them sure but put them back. Then they say they can't find them and I tell them it's because they didn't put them back. I did get scissors for each child which should be in the pencil box I bought for each child. Sigh. As for pens, I use the different colored gel pens. They get taken but everyone knows that they belong to me so when they are found lying around the house they are returned.

[Guest]

This is genius! I must try this to find all those blasted Nerf darts that are all over the house. It's not that I can't find them. I find them EVERYWHERE! Every room, every corner and crevice. But a paid pick up service sounds so much better than my finding them over and over again. They never make it back to the bin before someone snags the half-pile I have started...and they shoot them all over the house again.

True here, too.although I haven't had to pay, I just go insane or threaten to run the Roomba. I have found Nerf darts in the most unlikely places.

[vonfirmath]

we suffer from the same problem. It is especially maddening to be sitting down with a child who had a pencil, and hadn't even moved from his chair, and somehow lost it. Nowhere to be found. Where do they go? We have pencil trolls around here or something. 

 

This is the reason, when we sit down to do book work, we make sure we have 3 pencils at hand.

 

[DesertBlossom]

This is the reason, when we sit down to do book work, we make sure we have 3 pencils at hand.

If only we could find 3 pencils each.ðŸ˜

 

It doesn't help that DS11 likes to use pens and pencils in his "Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction" creations, so I am just as likely to find empty pen barrels or mechanical pencil parts instead of functional writing instruments. And they all deny doing it, but someone chews on the tips of the mechanical pencils and/or takes off the eraser end and loses it, rendering them useless. We use mainly wooden pencils for that reason.

[mommyoffive]

This happens to everything in our house too.

[Dmmetler]

I'm tempted to install one of those coin operated pencil machines they have at schools. Seriously. DD manages to hold on to pencils just fine when she's taking classes somewhere that she has to buy her own, but at home, it's like she assumes there is a pencil tree.

Edited March 1, 2017 by dmmetler

[Ravin]

This is genius!  I must try this to find all those blasted Nerf darts that are all over the house.  It's not that I can't find them.  I find them EVERYWHERE!  Every room, every corner and crevice.  But a paid pick up service sounds so much better than my finding them over and over again.  They never make it back to the bin before someone snags the half-pile I have started...and they shoot them all over the house again. 

 

I have a neighbor kid who will shoot them all up on the roof so you never have to bother looking for them again... :glare:

[Guest]

This morning, DH brought in a bunch of pens from his garage/truck, however, they are not the right ones! i admit it, I am very picky about pens. He brings in the sample pens he gets from vedors, but they always have these goofy features, like the clicker at the top is a flashlight and you operate the pen by twisting it. NO! I don't want those pens. I want pens that reliably operate in the expected way, with no cap (because then those become lost).

 

I'm buying pens soon, and they are going to be personalized or pink and sparkly. Or both!

[Ravin]

We haven't lost them too often even though they are in places where they don't belong. My big problem is always misplacing my reading glasses, especially on top of my head or hanging off the front of my shirt. Wouldn't it be easier if I just got one of those old lady things that hangs around the neck to attach my glasses to?

 

I obviously am tired. i cannot write right tonight.

 

We did this for DD. She still misplaces them, but less often.

[sassenach]

This morning, DH brought in a bunch of pens from his garage/truck, however, they are not the right ones! i admit it, I am very picky about pens. He brings in the sample pens he gets from vedors, but they always have these goofy features, like the clicker at the top is a flashlight and you operate the pen by twisting it. NO! I don't want those pens. I want pens that reliably operate in the expected way, with no cap (because then those become lost).

 

I'm buying pens soon, and they are going to be personalized or pink and sparkly. Or both!

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=pink+pen

 

Thanks to Susan G. Komen, you have all sorts of options.

[school17777]

The pencil/pen cup on the kitchen counter by the phone has no working pens or pencils in it. Just random colored pencils that need sharpened, crayons, dry erase markers, highlighters, etc. It was filled with sharpened pencils and working pens at one point, but I have no idea how it got switched up. Such a pain when you need to sign something or take a note when on the phone.

[Pegasus]

Oh, we've always had lots and lots of pens.  It has always been very easy to find one.  Wait. . .maybe you meant a WORKING pen.  Argh.  No matter how many times I've asked the rest of the family to please just throw out a non-working pen, it always took me several tries to find a working one when I needed it.  I finally went around just a couple weeks ago and tested every pen. It had to work, work well and smoothly, or it was tossed.  I tossed 80% of our pens. I then went out and bought a pack of nice new pens to replenish the stock.  *sigh* I'm happy.