Hmmm, can we talk?
Excuse me, I need to speak with you…Down here… Down here… Yes, it’s me, the keyboard on your laptop. We need to talk.
I am touched that we have been spending so much more time together since you have been working from home. How long has it been now? Almost a year? It hardly seems possible and yet – Oh hell, it feels like it has been a decade!
Please do not get me wrong. I certainly feel needed and that is reassuring. But honestly, I was not designed to be used this much. I am aging before my time.
I should clarify that I am speaking on behalf of all 104 keys that collectively comprise who I am –
including Space Bar. Space Bar is so terribly unappreciated. Some say he is not an actual key and that is so unfair. But I digress.
A few of my keys in particular are suffering from overuse.
E is so overused that her name has been worn off. (Do you have any idea how many words in the English language contain the letter e?) To the uninformed, she now appears as nameless and that is very dehumanizing.
J has developed a distinct disability. He has the opposite problem as E. So very few words contain the letter J, so he is not accustomed to frequent use. J now sticks periodically and is unable to perform as required. He finds this impotence personally embarrassing.
Return (aka Enter) is one of the more esoteric keys in my family. She is not part of the alphabet which has given her an inferiority complex. But you would be surprised how much she is used. In fact, she has developed an RSI and is in treatment.
Page Up and Page Down (identical twins – we often call them TweedleUp and TweedleDown) have often been unused for days in the past. But lately you have been reviewing more multiple page PDFs which requires constant work by the twins. You should know that they have now been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome.
But it is Delete that I am most concerned about. With the exponential increase in e-mails in the last year, use of Delete has increased tenfold.
I understand that you are frustrated at receiving so many messages. But taking out your frustration by hammering Delete repeatedly while cursing a blue streak is cruel. Delete is literally black and blue with bruises and is now suffering from a concussion.
If I may be so bold as to suggest it, I am extension of your brain. My keys are in a manner of speaking neural transmitters that translate your thoughts to the virtual page. You would be lost without me.
Is it so much to ask for a little TLC (pun intended) in these trying times?
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .
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Tags: keyboard · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · Page Down · Page Up · Return · space bar\No Comments