The Original Fidgit

Unless you've been living on an island in the far Pacific with Amelia Earhart for the past six months, you've probably happened across something called a fidget spinner. The first time I saw one was in a convenience store I frequent near the homestead. I made note of the trilobed plastic gadgets stacked at the register, but didn't really think too much about them, since that particular store has been known to sell everything from hair extensions to Carolina Panthers tiki dolls. A few days later, I saw something on the local news about therapeutic devices for dealing with anxiety and ADD. I didn't really make the connection until I saw a YouTube video touting the "healing powers" of what amounts to a rather boring toy. I'll say this for kids today, they know how to position a product. Back in my day, we never thought to promote our fad toys - knockers, whizzers, mood rings and spinners - as some sort of medical breakthrough.

In fairness though, we did have stress relief gadgets which teachers gladly let us carry into class and fidget with to our hearts content. They were called "pens." The complex ones like the Paper Mate Power Point and the Bic 4-Color were the best. They could be disassembled then reassembled in various ways over and over again; great for both relieving tension and building manual dexterity. But even the simple Bic Cristal made an adequate fidget. Michael Perry recently posted an essay on one very specific way of fidgeting with a Cristal, but that was a little too "hoodlum"for my taste. I preferred to simply remove the nub and ink tube and the little plug from the top and see if I could reassmble the pen backwards. (You can, but it's not very satisfying) When I tired of that, I would take the plastic cap and bend the pocket clip back and forth in an attempt to get it to break. And that, my friends, is where the Bic Cristal excels as a fidget device. I'm not sure what kind of plastic that cap was made of, or whether the caps today are even made from the same stuff, but let me tell you this; separating that clip from the rest of the cap was a task back in the day. It took hours and hours of bending back and forth to even thin out the plastic, and a good week of intermittent bending to actually break one loose. I carried those clipless pens like a badge of honor. Alas, only I knew the time and effort that went into them. Pretty much everybody else just thought I picked them out of the trash.

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John B. Marek

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