It only took me 7 hours to type this post. But it was free.
When I was in high school, my parents didn't give a crap what classes I took--except for one. Physics? Feh. Calculus? Yeah whatever. But my dad insisted that I take at least a year of touch typing by the time I graduated. He and my mom both said that as long as I could type upwards of 70wpm, I could get a job doing....something. At least, something that didn't involve welding or operating a ferris wheel. Considering it was one of the few things they were totally sound on, and that my mom had started out in a typing pool and seemed to be doing pretty darned well for herself, I humored them. After a semester of typing, most of which I spent goofing off with my friend David, I actually did learn to type pretty quickly and talked my dad down to a semester of typing so I could have a period free during my senior year to fuck off even more.
In years to come, it turned out my parents were right. Typing served me very well. In journalism school, where everything was deadline-driven, I blew the hunt n peck kids away. I was able to get jobs doing data entry and other exciting James Bond-level jobs. And today, I can type up in the triple-digit wpm range. At least, I could until yesterday.
I still can--just not on this computer. Because this keyboard has had a keyboard lobotomy. A few days before xmas, I spilled some soup on the counter. My computer was also on the counter and had a little sip, which shorted out part of my keyboard. Not the WHOLE keyboard, just the parts I actually use. I no longer have a functional Return key. Or a Shift key on the right. Or a Delete key. All I need is for the F, U, C and K keys to crap out and I'll be completely paralyzed.
Of course, everything has a fix. We took the computer to the Genius Bar and they said they could fix the broken keys....FOR TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS. If they regularly get people forking over 12 large to fix three keys on a keyboard, they really are geniuses.
The poor man's fix is way cheaper but far, far more annoying. I can still have a Return key if I just use the Enter key instead. That's simple enough. (Why does my computer have both a Return key and an Enter key? I DON'T KNOW.) For the Shift key, I can use the caps lock key to cap all of the letters on the left side of the keyboard (RIGHT??). And for Delete? I bring up the Keyboard Viewer on my Mac, which activates a teeny tiny version of my keyboard that enables me to not only see what I'm typing, but enables me to mouse-click the teeny tiny Delete key whenever I want to backspace.
If you think this is the most RETARDED thing you've ever heard, I'm right there with you. But it's also $1200 cheaper than the next alternative. Anyway, the net result of these stupid, stupid fixes is that touch typing? Mostly out the window. I'm forced to have to think about every other word that I type and make random complicated moves to compensate for the dead keys, thus slowing my typing at least in half. That I am even typing this now is a testament to how much I love you all. Or how narcissistic I am. Or something.
The thing is, this computer is only three years old. And because it's a Mac, it's still going strong. So I'm stuck with this ridiculous situation for quite a while. This is the computer equivalent of someone T-boning your 2002 Nissan Sentra at a light so that it's seriously fucked up, but not totalled. So your insurance makes you fix it but it's never, ever the same. And it's still a 2002 Nissan Sentra. I cannot in good conscience spend $1700 on a new laptop, or $1200 for a fully functioning keyboard. But here I am.
So if you need me to type anything for you, be patient. And let this be a lesson to you--if you're going to spill soup near your computer, go big or go home.
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