No Longer Her Type

I’m freezing my ball off out here.  At least it’s not snowing.  Yet.  I can’t believe Emily dropped me on the curb alongside her empty tuna cans and black banana peels and the rest of the trash.  Not even a box to cover my shame.  Can you believe it?  An IBM Selectric II, once the monarch of word craft royalty, waiting for a garbage truck to haul me away in the morning.  The abject indignation!

Oh, I enjoyed a place of honor in Emily’s life for almost fifteen years.  I was her faithful partner in creating term papers, personal correspondence, a doctoral thesis – and that stupid novel we started.  When she got blocked and stalled out on the book in the early 80’s she blamed me.  So, in 1984 she replaced me with a shiny new Apple 2e, thinking that would magically solve all her writing problems.  

Instead, it turned out to be a textbook exercise in karma. She did finally finish the novel, but three revisions and 27 rejections later, her precious manuscript still sits, uninteresting and unpublished, on the hard drive of her MacBook Pro.  It’s not good and it will never see the light of day.  And somehow, I’m sure she still blames me for her shortfalls as a writer.

Not that it’s any consolation, but Emily didn’t throw me out the day she brought home her first computer.  She wrapped my cord around me and put me on a shelf in her spare room where I sat for years.  Unplugged and useless, I sat collecting dust while the other trappings of her college days disappeared one by one.  Every January she would go through all her old stuff and “purge”.  That’s what she calls it.  Purging.  I’ve been purged.

First it was her hot pot, then her lava lamp.  She jettisoned her phonograph turntable and her alarm clock.  Then her hand-held calculator and her 12-inch black and white TV hit the curb.  She even sold her cherished Minolta 35mm SLR on eBay.  Yep.  And as I sat there watching all those once-loved mechanical servants disappear, I came to realize that someday, sooner or later, my time would come, and she would let me go without so much as a backward glance. 

And I wonder - was I the last to go because Emily loved me the most, or was she torturing me because, despite my best efforts, we didn’t produce the next great American novel together?  You be the judge; I’m not sure.  Either way, I deserved a better end than this.

But I still have value!  You want to play with fonts?  IBM made interchangeable letter balls in dozens of font types.  They all come with the matching italic version on the same ball. And your choice of 10 or 12 pica font size.  You can still buy them online for almost nothing.  I have auto self-correction, making it easy to revise and edit as you go.  My print quality is equal to the best inkjet and laser printers available. 

Couldn’t she have at least donated me or listed me on Craig's list - “Free to a good home”?  There must be somebody who would be glad to have me. 

Jesus, this is the longest night of my life.  When the sun comes up it will be warmer, but my last minutes will be ticking away before some ham-handed guy jumps down off the garbage truck, chucks me in the back, and activates the compactor.  Good god, what a way to go.

In the end, I do kind of get it.  Time marches on.  Technology advances at a hyperbolic rate.  The latest and greatest things from a year or two ago are constantly overcome by innovation.  To be fair, I’m sure that manual Smith-Corona model I replaced in 1974 wasn’t happy about how things ended either.  With all the incredible options for digital word craft available today, I guess it wasn’t realistic to expect she would keep me forever. 

Traffic is light so far.  It’s still early.  Where is that truck?  At this point, I’d just rather get it over with.  But – wait.  There’s a rusty Hyundai Excel slowing down and pulling toward the curb.  A young woman on the passenger side is smiling and looking at me.  They come to a complete stop right in front of me.  She - she’s getting out!

Oh sweet! she calls to the girl behind the wheel.  It’s EXACTLY what I’m looking for!  Can you believe somebody just threw this away?

What?  She wants me?

She opens the back door, picks me up and sets me carefully on the seat.  She gets back in front, buckles in, and her friend pulls away from the curb.  It’s warm in here!  Somebody wants me!  

Why in the world do you want that antique piece of crap?  the driver asks my new favorite human.

It will help me focus.  When I’m writing on my laptop, I’m constantly bombarded with texts, social posts, emails.  And the internet is always there.  It’s so distracting.  Using this old Selectric, I’ll load in a sheet of paper and just go to town on my novel.  No distractions.  Full concentration.

Sounds like heaven to me!

 But it’s a million years old.  How do you know it even still works?

Well, sure.  I’ll have to check it out and run it through its paces when we get home.  But it looks almost perfect.  I can’t wait to start using it.

Oh. I work, I work.  I’ll show you some paces, girl!  

Her name is Hannah. She is creative and brilliant and a really hard worker. She gives me a place of honor on her desk and puts me to good use. Together, we produce a novel that absolutely sings. She submits it to four publishers with no luck, but the fifth sends her that letter - the one that most writers can only ever dream about.

One year later - almost to the day - she stands in front of a phalanx of reporters clamoring to know her secret. "How did your first novel end up on the best-seller list?" 

It’s all about distraction management.  I cranked out every word of my book on an old IBM Selectric.  Don't get me wrong. I love my iPhone, my smart TV, and my MacBook Pro, but that old typewriter is absolutely my favorite electronic device now. I wouldn't be here today if I hadn't saved it from a one-way trip to the landfill last winter. It's a rescue typewriter. And just to be clear, it rescued me.

Hah!  She loves me! Take that, Emily.  REDEMPTION!