TITLE: The Pen is Mightier than the Sword AUTHOR: Kasey RATING: PG SUMMARY: Mrs. Landingham’s Plan DISCLAIMERS: Not mine.  Don’t sue. Charlie likes to laugh at me for it – well, no, he doesn’t laugh, he’s more polite than that.  But he does look at me like I’m crazy. But he gets angry and yells when he doesn’t have a pen.  And he’s very particular about his pens.  They can’t be too formal, those pens he uses to sign treaties and bills, then gives them away to lucky recipients.  The pens can’t be cheap like everyone else’s, either, standard Bic Ballpoint or Papermate. Oh, and he’s always been this way.  I remember stopping at a store one time because he needed to buy more pens, this was probably about thirty five years ago.  Maybe forty. I had to listen to him rant and rave for TWENTY MINUTES about ink quality and colour (did you know that, apparently, some ink turns vaguely amber when it fades?) before he finally bought a package. So every morning, I make sure he has a pen. Oh, they’re beautiful pens, too – dark blue with the seal of the President.  Long-lasting (when he doesn’t lose them) beautiful black ink (without the slightest hint of Navy or Amber) that doesn’t bleed all over the paper, the right width of ink, not too thick for the size he writes. One would think it might be hard to always have a pen in his jacket pocket for him, but it’s not.  He always leaves his jacket lying around.  So, during his first or second meeting, I make an excuse to go in.  He usually has Sr. Staff first thing, then a briefing of some kind in Oval, so it’s relatively inconspicuous for me to go in there with a folder or something, especially during Staff. But before I enter, I make sure I am well-armed.  With a pen. I keep them in a box in my desk drawer so that, every morning, I can take a pen and slip it unnoticed into his jacket pocket, whether the jacket be draped over a chair or a table... Only Charlie knows about it.  Maybe Nancy. What would he do without me? Probably run out of pens, among other things.