typewriters

For years, my girl S has visited my mom at her place of employment and banged on her typewriter. One year for Christmas, I even purchased her a toy typewriter, which she promptly destroyed cause it was a piece of plastic junk.

So I've been meaning to purchase an old typewriter - keeping my eye out for one @ garage sales, etc. I finally bought one of the millions that are listed on ebay. Paid $12.50 for the item, $16.50 for the shipping of such a large, heavy piece of outdated office machinery.

The typewriter arrived on Friday, and both girls typed on it incessantly through the weekend. The first thing that S asked me was "Where's the backspace button?" To which I replied "There's not one baby. Remember that liquid paper you painted your nails with @ Grammy's office that one time? That's what it's ACTUALLY for."

This typewriter doesn't have a correction tape, so truly, we just live with our mistakes. I've found sheets of paper all over the house, with typewritten missives kind of crookedly printed on them. A's are jibberish (she is just now beginning to recognize letters, much less read, much less type). S's are these stream-of-consciousness paragraphs, with some jibberish thrown in for good measure. They're laid out on the page kind of crooked - neither child bothers to get the paper on the spool nice and straight - so they're kind of like ransom notes.