As I sit here, plunking away at the keys, I wish I could go back in time and change things. Actually one very small thing, because as we all know, you change your past too much the future ”you” gets really screwed up…but, a small thing wouldn’t be too bad, would it?
I’d like to be able to type.
My college friend once tried to get me a job where she worked, typing in the relayed messages of the deaf over the phone.. She had to type fast, teleprompter fast. “Is it boring?” I asked, never one for boring. “It depends, sometimes the conversations are really boring, people making appointments, or wishing happy birthdays. But sometimes they have phone sex. I think they do it just to irritate me, I mean, they know I have to type it!” I imagined the worst, her hearing a moaning noise and having to type …moan….grunt….
That seemed sort of interesting, so I told her to get me the typing test so I could practice it. She smuggled one out to me, hoping we could commiserate at work as well. I can do this, I thought, looking at the long paragraph I needed to type in under 65 seconds. I can do this…and I practiced. And I practiced. And I still couldn’t do the damn thing in under 89 seconds so I crumpled up the paper and threw it across the room.“It’s okay, it’s not really a great job anyway,” She said. But I knew otherwise. It was a high paying job you could do with a hangover, one that could be slotted into your school schedule. Golden. But not meant for me, and I blame Travis.
Travis sat in front of me in typing class, and his ears were perfect. They were like two little tiny pink mice, all curled over each other, sleeping in a den of matted bowl cut boy hair. He laughed a lot, which made him high on my “dateable” scale. I regularly tapped him on the shoulder to make a reason to talk to him. “What did he say?” I’d ask, pretending to be hard of hearing. The truth was I hadn’t heard because I was too busy staring at Travis’ ears. I even doodled them on the side of a notebook, which if anyone had seen, would have caused embarrassment and perhaps a visit to the school counselor. Travis eventually noticed me noticing him and decided that he would take me out on a date, with his friends, basically doing what young people do. We wandered around in a parking lot asking each other if anyone had beer. Which if course no one had because we were about thirteen, broke, and had no idea what to do with ourselves. His friends were awful, complete jerks, his little sister somehow came with us and sat sulking and smoking on the back of someone’s car even though she was about eight, and Travis himself turned into a mega-lame-o as soon as he opened his mouth. (Mega lame-o will probably not ever make a resurgence as an insult). As soon as it started, it was over. Monday came and I found out that after I left he told all his friends and anyone who would listen that he was going to “do it” with me. Huh? This was infuriating. I was not going to “do it” with him. The news spread like wildfire, to which I quickly fanned a prairie fire of my own, about how I had no such intention of “doing it” with any boy who laughed like he was on HEE HAW.
So he became known as HEE HAW, because, well, it was true. His laugh wasn’t pretty. And his damn ears were, and they got me in a mess of trouble, because then I didn’t pay attention to him or typing class because now I had a reputation to save, and I was mad, and I have trouble hearing when I am angry. Ask my husband.
So, thanks Travis, thanks a lot. If your hair had only been TWO INCHES longer I could have had a brilliant career in..well…something where typing really fast is required. Like phone sex translation for the deaf.
Jerk.