J.S. Paul:

Imagine my disappointment. I had found the new 'It' pen: the Rebecca Moss Sport Pen. She gushed with ink as liberally as my trusty fine-tipped Pilot Precise V7 Rolling Ball, but Rebecca offered me something new-an upgrade in styling, heft and refillability. She had everything I wanted. The pen came packaged in a space-age pod container with sound-proofing foam to cradle the instrument. Inside: a pen with an elegant, athletic look. A masterpiece of German engineering, the pen's blue plastic housing had a smooth sandpaper tactility. I thought I had found love at first write.

But then our relationship soured. The "chrome" crowning the pen cap began to peel, revealing the shoddy, plasticky truth-she had been sheathed in a pseudo-chrome laminate. She was living a lie, and I wanted nothing to do with that $27 flake. Back to the store she went.

All I wanted was my old rollerball back, and luckily she would have me. What, then, is the new It pen for the masses? I can't say; I have no eyes for others. She keeps me in line.

A.M. Schneider-Mayerson

If you stroke for sport, but will have nothing to do with the UT Montblanc-posing scene, consider the FM 'It' Pen 1999, the Muji.

Trumping the shrink-wrapped tees at Old Navy, the Muji presents pen as commodity. The pen shaft resembles superfluous packaging, but the Muji carries no extras; the pen is packaging. Form, function.

Oversized ISBN, Japanese characters and a sterile disposability mark the pen as article of capitalist production. The soul-less pen testifies to imminent apocalypse.

While the juxtaposition of matte and glossy plastic is pure cutting edge, tubular Muji measures the same satisfying circumference as a McDonald's straw. Without special curves, ergonomic handles or even a silver clip, it is light and modern, ethereal and pragmatic.

More pomo than paralegal, the Muji ushers in a bleak, meaningless future. But it's still It.