ABOUT TYPING

The reason I’m typing this article today is to practice my typing, which is a skill I’m not very proficient at.  As a young lad, I took a typing class during summer vacation just prior to entering the ninth grade.  My mother felt that to be a good student typing was a talent one should master before entering high school. This was in the era prior to electronic typewriters. The only machines available were the archaic mechanical kind filled with countless moving parts and required the user to apply buckets of Whiteout to paint over the inevitable typing errors.

 

To give you a general idea of my typing proficiency at the time, during a typing speed drill I got my right middle finger caught between two keys, and in a panic I pulled my finger out vigorously, so I could complete the drill in a satisfactory period of time.  In the process of yanking my finger out I tore some (for lack of a better word) meat off both sides of my right middle finger.  Blood spewed forth and dribbled down into the mechanical works of the old fashion typewriter.  I am sure that to this day the scab that formed on the bottom of that machine is still there; and I am also convinced that fossil typewriter is buried in a landfill someplace, or more likely in some hot, steamy and cluttered office building in Bangladesh.  It seems appropriate that my right middle finger, the one I call my freeway finger, was the one that was damaged. It somehow put a symbolic twist on what occurred on that occasion.

 

Another persistent typing problem that first became apparent in that class is my heavy right-hand index finger.  If you think about the key that is under that levitating finger you will recall that it is the “j.”   Over my typing career, I have by far typed more unnecessary “j’s” than any other letter.  For years, a good deal of my typing time has been spent going back and eliminating “j’s” that are not suppose to be there. My right index finger seemingly is involved in a life long show of solidarity in support of what happened to its immediate neighbor on the right in that long ago typing class.

 

Compared to the machine I used in typing class, the word processor I’m presently working on is a dream; however, the keys are extremely sensitive, which only serves to amplify my “j” problem.  I have been trying to come up with some kind of cure.  One possible solution is to concentrate on that renegade index finger more while typing.  Unfortunately, I know that will not work because as I just typed that last line I introduced two “j’s” into the sentence that didn’t belong there.

Thumb sucking cures are available and seem to solve the problem for most thumb suckers. When is the last time you saw an adult suck his or her thumb?  Maybe, if I utilize some of the thumb sucking techniques on my unruly right index finger I can lick the problem, no pun intended. Many of the methods for breaking bad habits involve aversion therapy….PAIN!  So what to do?  One possibility would be to glue a thumb tack on to the “j” key thereby keeping that key constantly in my awareness.  Another option would be to break the “j” key and totally eliminate the “j” from my repertoire of letters.  This would cause problems when typing “jackass” or other must vocabulary words, but the sacrifice might be worth it if it once and for all eliminated my “j” dilemma.

 

An additional alternative, as I did when necessary in college, was having someone else type for me, usually for cash or some unpleasant “favor”.   Having somebody else doing the typing for you might seem to be the coward’s way out, but I contend that this is not necessarily a cowardly option.  It takes courage on many counts to get someone to do work for you.  First of all, you must demean yourself by exposing to others your lack of skill in the typing area.  People spend years in therapy learning to open up to others and to expose their vulnerabilities, so to allow someone to know their inadequacy in regards to the typing skill is no small feat.  Also, knowing whom to seek for help takes a strong background in analyzing the character of your fellow man.  Choosing the wrong person could expose you to vicious public ridicule, “a college student that can’t type, you’re pitiful.”  Another problem when having to grovel is the “what will you do for me” syndrome." The “favor” mentioned above.  When you’re caught in a deadline circumstance and you have tapped, without success, your usual sources, the “what will you do for me” situation can be disturbing.

       “Yea, I’ll do it for you as long as you’ll take my not very charming, not very pretty, not very intelligent, not very hygienic cousin to the dance.”

 

To some up, despite some of the inherent dangers of typing, if the question were to type or not to type I would say…. learn to type.

 

Reviews

[Shelley Holt-Lowrey]

Oh my. Came back for a quick minute and found this gem. Brilliant. Jjjjust brilliant. Clapping on my side of the selectric. Yes I learned to type on the standard non automatic typewriter too. Only I used correction tape. Whiteout hadn't been invented yet.