“That’s a good idea,” the woman from GAP Adventures said, startling me. She pointed at the notebook I wrote in with her pen.

“Thanks,” I said. “My pen has run out.”

Ballpoint pen at a green fair:
indispensable, unrecyclable.

I confessed I’d wandered from booth to booth, unable to take notes, looking for a likely pen to steal. But that just seemed so tacky, I told her, still writing.

She urged me to take hers.

Smooth: old pen lids cover thermometers
so they won’t break.