I watched Adam Savage talk about a pencil for nearly twenty minutes. He’s the kind of person who can make an interesting and engaging video about a pencil for nearly twenty minutes, and I am the kind of person who watches, despite knowing what the punchline will be, until the very end.

This is made all the more strange by the fact that I don’t like pencils. I never have. If it had not been for all of the Scantron bubbles I had to fill in with a No. 2 pencil, I might not have ever used them in school. The one and only exception is woodworking or other maker stuff. For that, I use a carpenter pencil. I’ve been saying for decades that pencils are for people who are afraid to commit. It’s kind of a joke.

While I don’t like pencils and am therefore not fussy about them, I am fussy about pens. I buy one kind of pen and buy them in bulk because I want them everywhere I might need them. Unlike Adam, I don’t generally lose or misplace them, but when that happens, I don’t sweat it because I know I have boxes of others.

I don’t know exactly why the Zebra Sarasa Retractable Clip Gel Pen 0.4 mm with black ink is the best pen. The smooth, quick-drying black ink is a delight. The satisfying springy click of the ink cartridge is a good substitute fidget toy for when I don’t have a small alligator clip around. The weight of the 0.4 mm line is certainly a good balance for all kinds of paper. The rubber grip is nice. The clip means it can attach securely to the outside of a notebook or pad of paper. Nearly every other pen I’ve tried (and I’ve tried many) just isn’t as good. I feel like I can count on Zebra, a privately-held Japanese company that only makes writing instruments, to maintain quality more than PaperMate, a subsidiary of Newell Brands, a U.S.-based public company that owns a laundry list of brands.