The James Bond Era

Recently I went to Dublin. I had never been to Ireland before, and I think the top thing I need to say about the place is that everyone is incredibly nice. I mean, just like blow your socks off nice. And, despite everyone saying that they were desperate for rain, the place was greener than anywhere in the American West I've ever lived.

The first day we got there, we were doing our best to combat our jet lag, and we found ourselves wandering around Dublin. We made our way down a street full of tourists and past a Montblanc pen store. We walked by it before my laggy brain thought, I want to see some Montblanc pens.

For those of you who did not grow up recording James Bond movies onto VHS tapes and then rewatching them until they broke, Montblanc is a luxury pen that James Bond often uses. He will be cavorting around the world, blowing things up in his three piece suit, and then he'll pull out a Montblanc pen from the depths of his bespoke attire and sign for a bottle of champaign. As a kid, I was fascinated by this. (Later in life, I had a roommate who pointed out to me that James Bond movies were extremely racist and sexist, but as a kid all I saw was James Bond blowing stuff up, skiing fast, scuba diving, and apparently signing for room service with a luxury pen. The fact I wasn't a 6 foot tall white man did not deter me from thinking, I could do that.)

I told my husband I wanted to go to the Montblanc store. I'm not sure he knew what Montblanc was, but he was game, so we wandered into the little storefront.

A young guy, maybe twenty-one, in a James Bond-esque suit greeted us. We were still wearing the clothes we'd traveled overnight in, and we did not match his level of fashion. Despite this, he was very nice. He led me to the show pens and allowed me to write with different thickness fountain pens. They were utterly cool. The starting price of their low end fountain pen was 900 Euros.

He showed me the pots of Montblanc ink that one could buy for the pens. My favorite was Irish Green. He looked me in the eye when he spoke and stood ramrod straight, not a single hair or thread on his pocket square out of place.

"Where are you from?" he asked.

"The United States," I said. "Sort of in the middle of the country."

He nodded vaguely. "So not by a coast?" he said.

"Nope. We have mountains though."

"There are only two Montblanc stores not by coasts in America. One in Chicago. And one in Las Vegas in Caesar's Palace."

"Yeah. We are kind of close to Vegas," I said.

His face went dreamy. After a moment, he said, his voice soft, "I love Vegas. I go there all the time."

"Cool." I said, thinking about how long it took us to get to Ireland. "What do you do there?"

He opened his mouth then his dreamy look snapped away. He pressed his lips together, seemingly swallowing whatever he was about to say, and finally said, "I cannot tell you. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

For a second, none of us said anything, and then I laughed and said, "Fair enough."

He considered me for a moment then said, "Would you like to see the secret showroom?"

"Um. Of course?" I said.

He waived a well manicured hand, and I went up a set of narrow stairs.

The upstairs was hot, narrow, and filled with lit glass cases. He motioned me to one. Taking a white glove out of his pocket, he opened the case and took out the Montblanc pen.

"This is our most expensive pen," he said.

I glanced at the price tag. 10,500 Euros.

"Would you like to hold it?"

The answer was clearly yes. He handed it to me.

"This is a Monet inspired pen," he started.

I held the pen, it had some real heft to it, while he explained the colors and designs that went into making it a tribute to Claude Monet. When he was done, he gently took the pen back in his gloved hand, handling it like it was a Fabergé egg, which only made the whole situation seem more like a James Bond movie.

He went on to show us more tribute pens, one to Jimi Hendrix, one to Marilyn Monroe, one to JFK, another to WB Yeats, and George Bernard Shaw, and James Joyce, and finally, an iconic reddish orange one.

"This one is one of my favorites," he told us. "It is a Ferrari pen."

We marveled at it while he held it adoringly. He whispered, "I love Ferraris."

After we saw all the pens in the secret showroom, we went back outside to the busy street.

"Those were nice pens," I told my husband.

"That man is doing a ton of cocaine and having copious amounts of sex in Vegas," my husband responded.

"No way," I said. "A man who wears a white glove to lovingly show you a $7,000 Ferrari pen would never do cocaine in Vegas."

"I hope he loves every second of it."

I thought of his face when he mentioned Vegas. "I'm pretty sure he does."

My husband took my hand. "You don't need a Montblanc pen."

"But if I did, I would need the Irish green ink."

"Good thing you don't."

And while I really don't need a Montblanc pen, if you ever catch me writing with one, just know, have made it to my James Bond Era. This will be a time when I'm running from explosions with perfect hair while wearing an amazing suit, complete with a Montblanc pen tucked in an inner pocket. The history of this time will be recorded in a lovely shade of Irish Green.

The thing is though, that Montblanc salesman might already be in his Bond Era. He has the hair and the suit. So I hope to everything that is holy that he's signing for all his Sin City room service in Ferrari red ink.