I’m not embarrassed to tell you wonderful Internet people that I have a typewriter. I am, however, slightly embarrassed to tell you about what I just did with it.
In order to iron out the kinks in a script I’m working on, I pulled out my Smith-Corona to try to bang my thoughts out on paper. It’s a manual typewriter, and so requires quite a lot of force to put letters on paper. When I work up a head of steam I often feel like a jazz pianist, his fingers ranging across the board, leaping into the air and then plunging down hard before moving swiftly onto the next key. Apparently my little writing exercise was going well, because I my hands flew fast and powerfully. So powerfully that the typewriter, as it sometimes does, began to drift sideways on the table, requiring regular adjustment.
What I didn’t notice was that everything else on the table was drifting too. And how could I? I was caught up in the moment, wrapped in the thrill of creation, utterly insensible from marveling at my own skill. (It’s a heady feeling!) I didn’t notice, as I pounded key after key, that my French press was ambling slightly northward with every character. (I’m talking about my big French press, the 4 cup one, not the little personal guy.) I didn’t notice the table shaking, and I swear I didn’t see the piece of coffee equipment move, but it must have. I know that because, in between words, staring at the line where I had just accidentally pushed the space bar before the D key, turning “good” into “goo d,” I noticed my French press doing a swan dive off the table. It seemed to hang in the air for about six seconds, during which I had time to think the following:
“Oh Gosh. That’s unlikely. I suppose it’s going to break now, and I’ll have to buy another one. They cost $40. This reminds me of that story my brother told me, about the girl who was holding two of them and smashed them both at the same time by hugging someone. I can’t believe I broke my French press with my typewriter. This is a problem only I would have.” THUD. “Oh! It didn’t break!”
Having tipped face forward, it seems to have landed on the plastic nub at the top of the plunger, sparing the glass the force of impact. Truly, it was typographicaffeinated miracle. Having been spared by the fates, I moved all the other glassware to the middle of the table, exhaled, and went back to work.
Five minutes later a small glass shattered onto the chair next to me, propelled by the same force that had almost doomed my coffemaker. This is why writers should only be allowed plastic cups.
