Today I’ve been incapable of writing the
word ‘parents’ (even had to go back and correct that one). Every time, my
fingers spell out p-a-r-t-e-n-t-s, autocorrect helpfully (not) makes it into
portents.
Being away from home and with the wireless
keyboard doesn’t help. I type happily then spot that nothing is happening on
screen. Is it just being slow; will several lines of prose (matchless, natch)
suddenly spill out, or has it lost concentration and attached its focus
elsewhere?
Don’t get me wrong. I love my wireless
keyboard, so does my back. I can sit properly and not have to hunch over the
keyboard attached to the tablet, but it has its downsides. When I first turned
it on and began to type, my phone sprang to life. The keyboard adores the phone
and will connect to it in favour of any other device.
But despite some issues along the way, it
has been a godsend. It must be at least a decade old. It’s an Apple one, but
very sociable; it’ll speak to any device in range. Took me ages to figure it
out when its love affair with my phone first began. ‘I can’t type anything,’ I
cried in despair. ‘I can’t text. What’s the matter with this phone?’ It was the
keyboard, inside its case, inside the laptop bag, in the cupboard at the other
side of the room, murmuring sweet nothings and giving the phone full access to
all it’s characters.
Some of those characters have themselves
begun to show their age. They can stick. If I want to write the letter A three
times in a row – aaagh! and the like – I must be gentle, or I’ll get a whole
page and a far longer scream of anguish than I originally needed before I can persuade
it to stop. The real devastation comes from the backspace delete key. Make the
mistake of holding it down to get rid of a dozen or so words and it’ll fly
through the entire manuscript like a demented reverse Pacman eating everything
in its path. That’s not a mistake I’ll make twice.
And now on with the chapter containing all
the p-a-r-e-n-t-s.
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