All Thumbs

by Darcy Rasmussen

I learned to type in the previous epoch, fingers flying on an IBM Selectric, reaching the dizzying speed of 80 WPM by semester's end. Two years later, the very first Apple Macintosh entered my life. What a thrill to compose, and recompose, and recompose — typing as fast as my thoughts could flow — then listen to the beehive buzz of the dot matrix rendering my work to paper. Now I have a brand new toy, a red jewel with a miniscule QWERTY keyboard; I swear the keys are the size of two grains of rice side-by-side. How do I convince my space-bar trained thumbs to do the work previously done by all 10 digits? I am f | fl | flu | flum | flumm | flummo | flummox | flummoxe | flummoxed.

6S

Darcy Rasmussen, whose full catalog is here, did not type this on her tiny QWERTY keyboard.