Page 34 - Dainfern Precinct October 2021

HUMOUR
The Disappearing
lot is known about the
migratory habits of
A supermarket trolleys
(Checkerstrollii wanderingtonia)
that escape from malls and find
their way down to quiet streams
or lanes often to spend the rest of
their days under a sheltering tree.
Even television sets (Oggleboxia
intens) can be restless. During the
night they often migrate from their
suburban homes to outlying areas.
But what about the most migratory
species of all – the lowly Bic pen?
Nothing on earth wanders off of its
own free will quite as secretively
as the Scribendia mobilis, the Bic.
But has any agency ever sent an
intrepid team to find out where
they go?
In my
childhood I
read of the
elephants’
graveyard
somewhere deep
inside Africa where
all elephants go to
die and where at night
thousands of tusks gleam
under the moon.
But the little pens? Do they also go
somewhere to die?
Think about it. Nobody has ever
seen one empty of its ink lying in
the veld. Nor has anybody been
known to use one until it runs dry.
It is well known that 13.2 million
tons of Bic pens are annually
produced in Johannesburg -
enough to bury Table Mountain. Yet
they all disappear without a trace.
"The average life of an ordinary Bic
pen is 1hr 14 mins," an executive of
Bic headquarters in Industria told
BIC
BIC
me in confidence. In confidence!
(Silly man.) He did not wish to be
named.
"The pointed tops disappear first,”
he said. “Then the little thing at
the end of the pen goes - usually
swallowed. We don’t care where
they go, but we‘d love to know
where the rest goes.”
He said that "each Bic pen is
capable of drawing a continuous
line from Johannesburg City Hall
2 32
DPL
to within 13.3m of Trompsburg’s
municipal boundary “yet we know
of nobody who has started to draw
a line from Johannesburg City
Hall and get beyond Alrode South.
Why? Because the pens disappear
long before Alrode North!
They disappear from government
offices in Pretoria at the rate of 127
an hour.
I have been aware of stories of
ballpoints travelling enormous
distances after rolling off desks
or having been lifted from banks
and offices by employees and
customers. This, say banks, is why
it is necessary to increase bank
charges.
Some time back, to find out once
and for all where they go to die,
Bic sent an expedition north. It
reached Kenya where, en passant,
(as we writers say in italics) it
found a huge pile of elephant ivory
cunningly disguised as a mountain
under a thin layer of ice and snow.
It was called Kilimanjaro. The
expedition leader learned that
kilimanja means "where" and ro
means "elephants go to die".
The expedition did not allow itself
to be distracted from its principal
quest and pressed on to the River
Oz, a tributary of the Rufiji where
they heard an enigmatic local
folksong - Buranthu ngthla m'Bik
gwamagadi. This, the leader noted,
translated as: "Follow the yellow
Bic road". After making volumes of
notes, this was the expedition's
first clue to the possible
proximity of the Bic graveyard.
Alas, it was the leader’s last note
- his pen disappeared! As a result,
he suffered a severe attack of
the deaths and the Bic graveyard
remains an enigma.