The keyboard gene
March 24, 2008
Where does chronic keyboard addiction (CKA) come from in the Ayers clan? I don’t know whether genes can properly be said to come from anywhere or anyone, but several of the family seem to suffer varying degrees of this pernicious CKA malady.
So here is the data. Make of it what you will.
Since dear Marilyn has a pathological hatred of any keyboard, (I think maybe a Royal portable typewriter fell on her head some time in her past), I shall start by assuming that I am the prime propagator of the KB gene in our family. We have four children, and one of those decided to skip a generation, but the other three have shown signs of suffering from CKA. The most seriously afflicted is our firstborn, Larry, followed closely by his sister, Linda, and arguably her matronly younger sister, Leslie. Only equally matronly Laura seems immune.
As an aside, I remember when my brothers and I accompanied mom and dad on a motor trip from Mt. Lebanon, PA, to Niagara Falls in 1947. It was billed as sort of a second honeymoon for the folks, and it got off to a rough start. Somewhere before Buffalo, NY, Dad ribbed Mom a bit about being a matron, now that she had turned forty. Three pairs of big ears in the back seat picked up on it and started calling her “matron mom.” Big mistake. I thought for a while that dad would throw us out of the car and make us walk the rest of the way. And then there was the incident in the hotel room at the Falls when they left us alone while they went out and held hands or something. But I digress.
Larry’s oldest, Tyler, seems to have received a dollop of the KG, and it’s a little too early to tell about great-granddaughter Franziska. And I’m not sure about Tyler’s sis Adrian, although we do get e-mails from her, mis-punctuation and all.
The next logical step in this scientific inquiry is to look back in my past to see where I might have picked up the KG. I think first of mom’s brother, Uncle Bus. I remember his wonderfully descriptive letters written from Okinawa, but he didn’t type. The only other possibility that I know of on mom’s side was her sister, Auntie Lois. She was a Navy Wave in the big war, and she typed a blue streak.
As far as I can remember, and that isn’t very far, no one on dad’s side of the family used a keyboard at all. There apparently were no bloggers then to get them started. I have to smile when I try to picture grandpa Ayers typing away from his combine, or grandma Ayers turning from her laptop to wring the head off a chicken for dinner.
This is getting ridiculous. I’m sorry. (Sort of.)
Dave, clicking away with abandon.
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