“Hand it over, now!” she said to me as I wrote this story.

“My blue pen?” I asked, continuing to write these words. “Or my red notebook?”

“Your yellow ruler,” she said.

I stared down at the yellow ruler that I used to write these words in my notebook.

“That’s impossible,” I said. “The paper in my notebook is unlined. If I hand over my ruler, I won’t be able to write in lines.”

“Exactly,” she said. Then, she raised her hand to frame her face and laughed loudly with her mouth hanging open. Then, she stared into my eyes and flashed me an extra-wide smile.

“No,” I said, placing my free hand on my ruler, pressing it into my page, and feeling it digging into the palm of my hand.

“Come on,” she said, laughing only with her eyes. “It will be good for you. It will make you uncomfortable.”

“It will make my writing a mess,” I said. “My words will jump all over the page. My sentence might start in the top left corner and end in the bottom right corner.”

“And wouldn’t that be a work of art?” she said. “Even better if you started with big letters in the top left corner and finished with tiny letters in the bottom right. It might even look like an optical illusion.”

“It might be unreadable,” I countered. “There is a reason that words are written in lines and that reason is for readability.”

“Who are you planning to show this notebook to anyway?” she asked. “Have you even shown anyone this notebook before?”

I shook my head as I continued to write.

“Hand it over, now!” she said. “The ruler.”

I looked at her. I looked at the words I was writing. I looked at the ruler.

I picked up the ruler and gave it to her, still continuing to write. And my words did move a little out of line. And some of my words became too large. And other words became too small.

“There,” she said from behind me.

I jumped, and the word I was writing became unintentionally underlined. I looked at her. I saw her reading my notebook over my shoulder.

“That’s not too bad,” she said. “It’s a lot more interesting.”

“Uh huh,” I said. “Well, I’ve humored you. I’ve tried your little experiment. I’ll take my ruler back.”

I held out my hand.

“Hand it over, now!” I said.