Phidon Story: Karin Schmidlin

In Karin’s words, she is often behind the camera instead of in front of it! Here is a photo she took of Mano and some Leuchtturm1917 goodies on a visit to the store.

Some people notice beautiful shoes or expensive cars; I notice pens and notebooks. I check out what people carry with them at meetings and obsess over the yellow pencils on the desk of a TV detective.

I was still relatively new in town, working at my new job at the University of Waterloo. On the first day of classes, I notice this lovely Caran D’Ache ballpoint pen sitting in front of a new student. Turns out her parents own a stationery store close by!

Months pass. Then, one Saturday, I find myself in the lovely town of Galt and see a sign for a stationery store. Lightbulbs go off in my head, and I connect the dots! As I walk into Phidon, Mano greets me warmly, says I look familiar, and realizes she knows how from her daughter Simran’s Instagram.

And this is how our friendship started.

Thanks to Karin for sharing this lovely coincidence with us and for being a part of the inspiration for this series. This blog post was written as part of the Phidon Stories collection. If you would like to share your story, please email us at phidonpens@bellnet.ca.