This morning, I was sick of my tablet pen double-clicking all the time*, so I was determined to make the pen nib longer. I cut part of it off and then glued that part to the end of another nib. I thought I was being genius. But ho! as soon as I put the nib in the pen, the glue broke, leaving half of the pen nib STUCK INSIDE. You cannot imagine my despair. I felt like the weight of every broken art tool was crushing down on my heart, suffocating me (and making me cranky holy crap).

There were only two choices: give up, or take the pen apart. I chose the latter. Let me tell you guys, this is a scary procedure. I felt like I was doing trauma heart surgery. there's a circuit board in there, and some weird loopy things, and wires, and teeny tiny springs, and they all came splattering out on the table. I was able to push out the stuck pen nib, and then got to work trying to put it back together. I tried putting all the springs back into the places I thought they went, but that was difficult, because my hands were shaking so much. In the end.. it still didn't work. I think some pieces must have fallen on the ground, because when I put the pen back together, the insides kept jiggling around. I messed with it for another 30 minutes without much progress.

So finally I took a rubber band, cut it up into fourths, and jimmy-rigged a spring out of it, snipping it occasionally to get the size right.

And presto! PERFECT TABLET PEN. I'm amazed at myself (actually I'm just amazed at my luck, because by all rights, my pen should be utterly destroyed with what I put it through). Anyway.. my tablet works! No more double-clicking, and the pressure (miraculously) seems to be functioning correctly.

I am so relieved. Holy crap.


*I can't afford to replace this pen. It costs $70 to get a new one for my type of tablet. zomg.