Messiness

Today is October 30. Today was the day that the ballpoint pen was patented in 1888. The innovation of the ballpoint was that the ink was contained inside the pen, so you didn’t have to carry around a bottle of the stuff.

The significance of the invention was that life was a little less messy. Anytime I am prompted to think about life was at some point in history, I mostly dwell on the messiness of pre-20th century life. And I’m not a particularly neat person by today’s standards. But think about it – before ballpoint pens, anytime you wanted to write, there was a little bottle of the most awfully staining material known to humans sitting by your side, ready for a stray cat, arm, or wayward book on your desk to knock it over. And even if you weren’t writing, if there was any chance that you would ever write, then you possessed a little bottle of ink, and in the days before plastic, the bottle was prone to breakage if you carried it around without the proper cushioning and packing (and again, this was pre-plastic, so no bubble wrap).

But ink was the least of the messy possibilities in the olden days. Ink was only an issue for people who were writing. Other messiness attached to EVERYONE, no matter what. For instance, I believe that probably the single greatest comfort invention in the history of humankind was nose tissue. I can’t even imagine having a bad cold without it – or worse yet, living in close proximity to someone with a bad cold who had no tissues.

And along that same line, for most of history there was no toilet paper, (no toilets, for that matter), no tampons or sanitary pads, no daily clothing change, no paper towels, no toothbrushes, no diaper wipes, no huge supply of diapers, and - you get the picture.

Back to the ballpoint pen. Before that, I don’t know how any parent had the courage to teach their kid to write. I guess that was why school kids carried the little personal chalkboards (the forerunner of the personal computer, I guess). But even then, at some point you had to go ahead and grit your teeth and hand over the bottle of ink.

So today, we celebrate the invention of the ballpoint pen. The day parenting became a little less stressful.