About three months ago I gave people even more of a reason to think of me as a nerdy, self-absorbed loser. As I opened up a cardboard box of 262 pens marked with my website, social media handle, and personal slogan I know I did very little to prove to others that I am actually a normal person. But people’s doubts about my sanity couldn’t hide the ear-to-ear grin on my face of having yet another cheesy promo item to push my blog.

I happily took this picture in March right after I received my shipment of pens.

But you might ask yourself what I have done with my massive stash of pens. After all, my own mother called me out on what many thought was a boneheaded, unnecessary, and mildly egotistical waste of money. But while some may have shared my mom’s thinking I firmly believe that I made probably the best $94 purchase of my life by ordering those pens. You see, not only have I used them to write pretty much every single word I have written in the past 90 days I have also used them to spread the good news of my blog far and wide. Let me explain.

My mom’s reaction when she heard I purchased 262 personalized pens.

Before making my cross country trip to Myrtle Beach I spent time in Missoula, Spokane, and Iowa City. In these three places I distributed pens to everyone I came in contact with and left them everywhere I could. When I headed out on my 2,700+ mile journey I made sure that my box of writing utensils was up front with me in the U-Haul. Every single rest stop or gas station we stopped at I would leave a pen. All hotels we stayed at or restaurants we ate at I would do the same. The trail of ten states and numerous cities we traveled through could all be traced by a pen trail. I spread my pens across the nation better than Johnny Appleseed spread his seeds.

I spread these pens all across the country.

Since arriving in Myrtle Beach I have not stopped distributing the love. As many of you know from reading this blog, I have ate at many restaurants here. Each time I receive the check I take whatever rinky-dink pen they provide me with and put it in my pocket. I then replace it with one of my Don’t Blink pens. As I always carry no less than four of my pens in my pocket I have no problem making several switches in a single day. My boss watched me do this last week as we ate at a Mexican restaurant and I am pretty sure he thought I was crazy. He tried to make it sound like he didn’t think I was completely insane by saying that he thought it was a good idea and that he might start doing the same thing with Coastal Carolina pens.

Obviously I feel way too cool for school with these pens.

The best is when you return to a place and you see that your pen is still in circulation! This has happened to me at a local neighborhood hangout where the pen I left two weeks ago still gets plenty of usage by the staff as I witnessed this past weekend. Or it is pretty cool to get a random Twitter follower and upon reading that person’s bio you realize he/she is an employee at one of the restaurants you left a pen at. These occurrences all add to the great fun I have had with my personalized items.

Surprisingly, I still have a lot of pens left in my cardboard box.

You know the crazy thing? It seems like I still have A LOT of pens left. Despite the sense that I have given away more pens than Santa Claus has toys my cardboard box is far from empty. With that said, I wish to give my friends in Myrtle Beach the exact same opportunity I gave my friends in Missoula. If you would like one of my coveted personalized pens just let me know and I would be more than happy to provide you with the finest writing ink around. You will swear that your penmanship had never been better. So please make sure to hit me up, I have more pens than even my oversized ego can handle. Don’t Blink.