The Sharpie Liquid Accent ConspiracyI call shenanigans!by Cl. Panic, guest blogger

I'll start by saying that I'm a pretty big fan of all things Sharpie. And the folks as Sanford have been great about replacing their products on the rare occasion that they fail prematurely.

Those who know Cl. Panic know that Cl. Panic is a bit of a pen nut. Not enough of a pen nut to have a blog about pens, but enough of a pen nut to read the blogs of others that are more pen-nutty (or creative) than I.

As it turns out, I really like the Sharpie Liquid Accent highlighters. Nice bright colors, free-flowing ink, and no stuttering to slow death -- the mostly-clear barrel lets you now when you're about to be highlighter-less. Unfortunately Nu, Nu & Nu, LLP doesn't stock such high-end fare in the supply cabinet. Just cheap-ol' no-name highlighters that fade from fluorescent yellow to dingy, washed-out yellow after a few days on paper.

Not surprisingly, my penchant for the Liquid Accent is shared with at least one co-worker, and at least one bigger pen-nut. After reading a comment over on Good Pens, I decided I'd try to refill one of the Liquid Accent highlighters. You'd know, save the earth and all.

Refill you ask? How in the hell . . . . Well, I have a bottle of Noodler's fluorescent ink that I've been using in a refillable fountain pen to annotate really boring TPS reports and to prepare for my meetings with the Bobs. It rocks. And so that comment got me thinking: I have a bottle of ink and an empty Liquid Accent. This can't be so hard . . . .

Out came the pliers (this thing was NOT easy to open) . . . wait. Hold on. What the hell? It turns out that the Sharpie Accent has a false bottom. Or false middle. Or whatever. And not in a good "the money's hidden under the false drawer bottom" kind of way.

It just so happens that the false bottom is hidden by the trendy graphics on the barrel of the highlighter! I inserted a straw into the cavity to illustrate the treachery (ironically marking the end of the barrel with a black Sharpie).



It turns out that these run out of ink so quickly not just due to my over-highlighting, but because they come from the factory about half full!

I call shenanigans.*

The clever black barrel design. The nearly impossible-to-open end cap. All part of the great Sharpie conspiracy? The world may never know.

* Granted my now-empty Sharpie Accent wasn't a recent purchase. Perhaps the Sharpie folks have since changed their ways. But given the wide-spread occurrence of Grocery Shrink Ray, I somehow doubt it.