The Crimes of Correction Fluid

by Kimberly | post a comment

Before I joined the Japanese stationary revolution I 'corrected' my incorrect pen marks with correction fluid like everyone else. Any misspellings, grammatical errors, or even aberrant globs of ink got flooded with greasy, gloopy, goo. I knew there had to be a better way. The crimes of correction fluid are almost too numerous to list, but I will do my best:

- flakes off the paper when you write over it
- smells awful
- soaks through the paper
- globs up
- a bottle lasts two weeks before it gets too thick to use
- not a precision method
- goes everywhere
- the brush turns into 'the club' after a few uses
- can separate and become an oily mess
- you have to shake it before use

Shaking is fine for salad dressing or eye-makeup-remover, but stationary products should lend themselves to quiet elegance, colorful expressiveness, or even youthful exuberance. What they should not do is make you feel like the paint mixer in the back of home depot.

Before you judge me as too harsh on this topic, I want to affirm that I don't feel any animosity toward the users of correction fluid. I see them as the victims, not the perpetrators, of this great misdeed against society. So if any of your out there have three or four crusty bottles of correction fluid in your desk drawer simply because you didn't know there was a better way, allow me to enlighten you:

- Pencil is an obvious choice for those of you with a need for correction in your writing. If you burn through the eraser-end of your pencils in a few pages or less, try a jumbo eraser.

- Correction Tape is best for correcting one character or more of text. Tapes come in many sizes, so it is easy to correct your slip-ups no matter your handwriting style.

- Correction Pens are best for jobs smaller than one character. Accidental flourishes, reversed accents above characters, or even turning a 'd' into a 'c' in a pinch.

Correction fluid is the VHS tape of correction products. Join the modern age and switch to correction tape and correction pens, you'll be glad you did.

post a comment

You might also be interested in:

• Tokyo Pen Shop is pleased to stock Nomadic!
• Join us on Facebook for buying trip updates
• Tokyo Pen Shop Goes To Tokyo
• Choosing Your Daily Pen
• The Lacking and Lackluster Erasable Pen
• Kuru Toga Sweeps the Blogosphere
• Can Highlighting Outshine the Underline?
• The Apica Twin Ring Notebook, Most Advanced Quality
• The Great Pen Debate: Click-Tops vs. Caps
• Creative uses for Uncommon Colors of Ink
• The Redemption of the Feared Red Pen
• Not All Hi Tec C Pens are Created Equal