There were times in my life, long before the internet, and shortly before the Sharper Image catalog came to my house, when I would dream of owning something really cool. Something other than my dad's nylon Nike® windbreaker and pants (as seen in the movie "Breakin'" and "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo Shrimp") that I would occasionally wear when break dancing (I was more of a Popper and a Locker, so backspins weren't a staple move of mine).

One of those things that I would occasionally pine for was a NASA Space pen. There was something irresistible about having the same pen that astronauts used while conducting space missions. It would write sideways, upside-down, any-which-way and would never stop writing. It had miraculous chrome-bullet styling and would need no introduction on the playground. Flash that baby, and the ooohs and aaahs would commence. Sure my signature would need to be refined, but there could be no end to the good fortune that was sure to fall on its lucky owner.

Recently, I saw an advertisement and for a Space Pen and several things occurred to me. Sharper Image died because of the internet, probs. It was the only place I could see a Barnett® Crossbow and kid-sized F1 race car from FAO Schwartz in the same catalog. It was Not a Crossbow5 times the magic of the Sears Christmas Catalog until they really started focusing on the Air Ionizers and golf accessories. I swear every issue of the last year or two of Sharper Image contained about 12 different kind of Air Purifiers and Ionizers. It had more putting aids than a Brookstone catalog. Once the intertube hit the scene, I could find the most outlandish, wild toys and inventions the world had to offer, and could skip the Ionizer and golf themed "Sharper" pages.

The other thing that occurred to me when I saw the Space Pen advertisement: NASA probably doesn't use space pens anymore. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I just can't picture astronauts using pens in space for anything other than spinning it for some zero-gravity footage (even now I think they do things like squirt ketchup or throw popcorn). Most of my vision of NASA comes from "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" (made back in the 60's, I suppose) and I don't remember seeing Space Pens being used.

It's a shame that even space, rockets and NASA don't carry the panache they once did. I suppose that even now, "Space Pen" has an associative mystique that "Upside-Down Pen" or "Gravity Defying Pen" just can't duplicate. Perhaps the boilerplate in the advertisement states that the pen is no longer used in space, but if not, maybe, just maybe, America's finest space men are still taking those ink-filled wonders up into the stratosphere for a engaging page of Sudoku.