Betrayal

We joke in my family that once we love something, we love it for life.  As Craig once noted, this is great for the boys who have married into our family-- we are fiercely loyal to the men we have chosen.  To our baseball and football teams.  To the musicals we love.  To our favorite books.

In my case, I have also been a huge fan of *Mujirushi pens ever since I discovered them on my mission.  For a long time I guarded my pens like a dragon with its gold, only loaning them out when I could keep them in my sight (NEVER letting someone use them to pass around with a sign up sheet in relief society-- I think for a while I even carried decoy pens in case someone needed one!).  The kids knew not to touch mommy's special pens.  A long time after my mission, I discovered you could buy them in the JFK airport, and then a friend from the Japanese House would send me a new set each Christmas, so I managed to keep my supply going until the magical day when I found them on Amazon.  From there, I thought I was all set!

So it feels very wrong that I just bought off-brand Muji pens.  But I did.

In my defense, I think Muji hurt me first.  What I love about their pens is that they write so smoothly.  But occasionally, I'd get a pen that just died and wouldn't work at all.  (And since they're see-through, it was obvious that the pen hadn't just run out of ink.)

Most recently, it was the purple pen that did this.  It barely works at all.

I tried to just buy a purple Muji pen, but you can only get one by buying the whole rainbow set, which I don't really need.  And as I was searching for options, all these cheap knock-offs kept popping up.  And as I stared at their price, it occurred to me that Muji probably didn't deserve my loyalty if they were going to keep sending me dud pens.

So I bought the knock-offs.  And they're made in China.  {Shudder}  But the purple pen writes great, and I'm assuming the others will, too.

If you ignore that the label says "Hanku" and "Made in China"...

Real Muji pen on the left, knock-off on the right.  They're nearly identical!

But I'm a little sad about it.  It feels like the end of an era.

*The name means "label-less" in Japanese, and their trademark look is that everything is clear.  It makes the whole store feel so crisp and clean-- it's like being in the Container store, but mostly for stationery and office supplies (although they do sell clothing and other random stuff, too).  It's such a beautiful aesthetic.  I'm sure Marie Kondo is the biggest fan ever!