This Is the Best Pen Money Can Buy on Amazon, Full Stop 

In the grand scheme of “exciting purchases,” I don’t suppose pens are really up there. It’s a digital world, and outside of begrudgingly writing rent checks or writing passive-aggressive notes to your upstairs neighbors imploring them to buy a less squeaky bed frame, you might not think you have much use for them. But look, you need ‘em, and there’s something inherently retro and cool about knowing the type of pen you love, and the kind you want to carry with you wherever you go.

To that end, you won’t buy something more useful, more surprisingly life-changing than a pack of 12 of the Uni-ball Micro Roller Pens [Amazon, $6.93]. Not only are they cheap as hell (that price works out to just over 50 cents a pen!) but, seriously, they’re a dream to use.

What’s the worst a pen can be? It can get clogged up easily, leaving random points of giant splotches of ink, or no ink at all, at various intervals. It can be slow-drying, leaving the potential for ugly black smears all over your page. It can be scratchy and uncomfortable to use, like trying to etch something on sandpaper. You’d think designing a basically good pen is pretty easy, but man are there a bunch of bad pens out there. In fact, most of them suck. The Uni-ball Micro is none of those things, and it most certainly does not suck. It glides across paper to the point where writing just plain feels good and fun. Its ink is smooth and a pleasing, deep black, and it dries almost instantaneously. Its 0.5mm point gives your writing/sketches a precise, sharp feeling. Simply put: it does what a pen is supposed to do, with absolutely no frills, and absolutely no problems.

You will not make a smarter, more long-lasting purchase than the Uni-ball Micro Roller Pens, and that’s a promise. Even if you’re a paperless evangelical, what’s not to love about a good stash of great pens, just to have?