Editing The Pen Addict 366/transcript (section)

== Listener Email ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, I'm going to take this next one, Myke, from Roland. He says, first off, I wanted to share with you a major accomplishment in my life. As of your last episode, which for all we know, Myke, could be like episode 290, depending on how old this email is. I have listened to every single episode of The Pen Addict. How appropriate to celebrate by sending you a disaster story. I've been into fountain pens on and off since the 90s. I picked up a full-fledged addiction about four years ago. Throughout all this time, I only used blue and black inks. A little over a year ago, I decided to expand my ink world and look for a green ink. I settled on a bottle of Noodler's Grin Cactus. I purchased it from Amazon in large part because I could get free same-day delivery. Being a Friday, I simply could not wait through the weekend. No, I needed the ink. Now. I got the delivery notice while I was still at the office, so I wrapped up as quickly as I could to get home early because I had an evening event at my church. It was an event I couldn't miss because my wife and I were two of the coordinators. I get home and there's an Amazon box. I went to the dining room table and started opening it up. I couldn't be bothered to sit down. I took the white Noodler's box out of the bubble wrap and turned it on its side to look at the Noodler's artwork. It's great as always. I opened the box to take out the bottle. That's when I felt something on my hand. I thought, that's weird. Now where's my ink? Then I heard the liquid splash in the floor. After about 10 minutes, at least it felt like 10 minutes, I realized that the bottle was broken and that I would soon have a green floor unless I acted soon. I ran to the kitchen sink to figure out what happened. It was about that time my wife got home.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' While tolerant, she is not exactly supportive of my hobby. I could see that this was not going to help things. After a quick discussion, she was on her way to our event and I started the cleanup. Sounds like he got off pretty easy there. We'll see how this goes. I should also mention I was wearing a brand new suit when this debacle occurred. A new gray suit, which now had a streak of green. Oh, dear. As I scrubbed the floor, the counter, and the sink, I called Amazon. I wish I could say I was polite, but I wasn't. After much discussion, I was appeased with a full refund of my order, not just the ink, and a promise of a $100 credit to replace any damage done. The cleanup was more successful than I expected. The ceramic tile and kitchen floor cleaned up well, except for the grout, which to this day still has a hint of green. There are pictures for this, Myke, that I have linked. I got about six or seven of them. I linked a couple of the more intense ones. The kitchen counter still had some faint green spots until we replaced them this month. Some stains on the cabinets never came out and serve as a reminder that patience and care are virtues. My dry cleaner was able to save my suit and a half dozen washing machine cycles with various mixes of cleaners, soaps, and spot removers was able to save my shirt. My hands remained green for two days. There's definitely a hand picture.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I got it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Photos are attached of some of the damage as well as the broken cap that was the cause of it all. After the cleanup and a change of clothes, I went to the church event. Of course, my wife tried to explain my tardiness, but as soon as my hands were seen, I would hear the question, green? It's worth mentioning that the Amazon rep was apparently ignorant to her authority or just lied to me to get me off the phone when I got the refund. The $100 credit never materialized, and in case you're wondering, I was able to salvage about half the bottle. I hope you enjoyed my disaster. I didn't enjoy your disaster. That was a bad disaster, Roland, but I feel for you. Like, there's nothing more scary than shipping ink, I think. When you combine that with Noodlers in particular who fills the ink bottle to the 99.99% of airspace within the bottle, any dings, dents, rustling, shaking, shimmering in transport is going to maybe lead to these extreme things happening. I also wonder if that same day shipping, how much that bottle was physically thrown through the air for it to arrive in its destination. Now, I actually think Roland is underselling the damage that this caused. Yeah. Did you see these pictures?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, it's bad. It's really bad. It's everywhere.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, the cap is clearly cracked, right? So, that came, it had to have come during shipping. It looks like, you know, that's not something you're going to do yourself right after the fact, right? When you open the box, it's just going to come gushing out. His hands are literally like Hulk green, like, not splashed. we'll put some of these pictures in the show notes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The amount of ink that is on the floor and the wall, I can't believe there's still a half a bottle of ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What I can't work out is how did the spots in the kitchen get there?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You see, there's like that big epicenter. The running of the bottle from the table to the sink would be my guess. Not that he said specifically, but that's where I would be taking it. If I opened up a package and it just started gushing, I'm running to where I can release the entire bottle from my grasp probably into the sink. So there's, it's almost, it's green, but if it was red, it would look like a murder scene, right? I mean, that's how bad this looked.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's very bad. It's very, very bad. Can you imagine standing and somebody coming into the room and seeing this? Like,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' no, I, like, I can't, I, I guess his wife probably made the right move by just leaving, letting him to clean it instead of like dealing with this nonsense that had just transpired. But this is an outrageous amount of ink spill.