The "Catch Me If You Can" pen

The local Staples store had these nice-looking pens on clearance this week. (...they gleam so ... but I don't really need another pen -- oh look, only 50 cents for a 3-pack...) Just as I was about to be reasonable and walk away, I saw that they were billed as somehow resistant to check fraud. And I spotted an ornate seal of approval on the back of the package: ... Abagnale .. A mouthful of a name ... Frank W. Abagnale ... Waitaminute ... That rings a bell ... Yes! This is the guy from "Catch Me If You Can," who singlehandedly invented dozens of tricks to forge documents, con people, and steal a few million dollars. At first I didn't get it: would we want Ronald McDonald certifying our filets mignons? But further study showed that Abagnale & Associates are a bona fide business -- lucrative enough, in fact, to pay back all the money he swindled. (Good thing he didn't pay them back four times over -- preachers everywhere would've made him a sermon illustration.) Among many other things, A&A helped formulate the Uni-Ball 207's special ink that sinks deeply into paper fibers and can't be washed out.

On the company Website, Abagnale comments on the book and movie and how he's changed since then. And Wikiquote has some juicy quips:

• "If my forgeries looked as bad as the CBS documents, it would have been 'Catch Me In Two Days'."
  • Frank Abagnale, on the Killian memos.

• "Remember what being an adult is: It has nothing to do with money or awards."
  • Frank Abagnale, speaking to high-school students in Highland Park, Texas [4]

• I had no fear -- like a kid driving down the freeway at 100 miles an hour.
  • Frank Abagnale [6]

• I did not make this film about Frank Abagnale because of what he did . . but because of what he has done with his life the past 30 years.
  • Steven Spielberg. [9]

I bought nine pens. I think I've already lost two.