The other day (I did NOT meet a bear and I will kill you if you start singing that. That means you, Judy!) I had one of those experiences that will someday be funny when included in a movie. Work was sloooooooower than any snail you've ever seen. I mean, come on, we have 1500 whole people in town, and at least 1495 are probably customers at our bank--wouldn't you think at least 20 people would come in?? No. They did not. (I'm exaggerating. More than 20 people came in. Just not very many more.) Since work was slow, my boss gave me a project. (The word project makes me run. Seriously. I'd rather stare off into space and drool, thanks.)

My project was to fill in addresses on loan denial forms. With a typewriter, because it needed to print onto a carbon copy and computers don't do that. So after staring at the typewriter for at least a full minute, wondering how I got the paper in, I asked one of the--ahem--more mature tellers for some assistance. So we got that going and I started filling in the form. I had to put an X in a box and then type in the address for the credit reporting service we use and the FDIC Consumer Response Center. (If you're interested, I've got both addresses seared into my memory forever, and also a phone number for the credit reporting service.)

Well. My stack of forms to fill out was GIANT. And I was a little resentful because the typewriter is in a back room and I was cut off from almost all human contact, except when people passed through the room and asked, "What on Earth are you doing?!" with their voices full of shock and horror.

My frustrations began within seconds. The problem with the typewriter is that it's kind of guess as to where you're typing. You have a general idea, but the form had lines and I could never tell if I was going to be above the line, right on it, or typing through it. And putting the X in the box was almost impossible. Being the OCD freak that I am, it really really intensely bothered me that I couldn't get the X right through the center of the box. I probably spent most of my time fretting over whether I was lined up and waiting to type one stupid letter until I was sure I was as close as I could get. It became a battle between the typewriter and myself. I was determined to get perfect Xs. (The typewriter won more of these battles than I did, I am sad to admit.)

Another problem I had with the typewriter was the fact that I couldn't backspace. I have a lot of trouble with typing the letters out of order, or hitting other letters, or whatever. Sometimes my fingers get going faster than my brain and I make mistakes. This typewriter, luckily, has the correction tape stuff and you can hit the back button and it covers it and you type over it. So, great. I made mistakes, but you couldn't tell. Well, then someone said something about the carbon copy showing your mistakes, and I got worried and took a look. Sure enough, you could tell where I'd messed up. Some of them were very bad. There were pages that I'd messed up almost every single stinking word. I don't know who'll keep the carbon copy, but I hope it's not crucial to be able to read the addresses.

And then the correction tape ran out. NO! I couldn't do it without the correction tape. That's why the correction tape ran out in the first place. So I went to the store room to look for more. There were like 30,000 different types of typewriter ribbon. I had no idea what type I needed. And they weren't even labeled simply, like "black" or "correction tape." They had weird names like "clear lift-off tape." That sounds more like something you would need for an airplane! So I took a guess and grabbed two different kinds and took my loot back. I got the old ribbon out. I correctly got the new ribbon attached. (Clear lift-off tape was the right stuff, turns out.) In the process, the black ribbon got a bit tangled and looked a bit tattered. But I didn't know what to do about that, so I just put it back in and kept typing. Except that the black wasn't typing. Ugh. So I went back to the storeroom, got a new black ribbon, and changed that one. There. Black one working. But the correction tape wasn't working! I took the ribbon out and looked at it again. At this point I'd been fiddling with the ribbons for at least ten minutes. So I was turning the little wheel, trying to figure out what the deal was, when the tape suddenly turned from orange to clear. Yeah...remember how it's called CLEAR lift-off tape? I'm retarded. You're supposed to wind past the orange part to the clear part. So I finally got the ribbons all squared away (I didn't tell anyone about my stupidity; I just pretended I had fixed whatever the problem was.) and went type type typing away, filling in the forms by memory because at that point I could say the addresses in my sleep.

I was also filling in the address of the loan officers--I had to fill one out for the Enterprise branch and the Moro branch. I did Enterprise first and had gotten started on Moro when I had the escapade with the ribbons. So I went back to typing and did at least 50 pages of Moro...with the Enterprise P.O. box number. And the Moro loan officer's signature at the bottom. I wanted to scream or cry or throw the stupid typewriter out the window. I blame it. It was battling me and distracted me.

So I had to white out the box number on alllllll those forms and then go back and type the right box number over it. But of course, since it's hard to line it up right, some of them have the 44 way up high and some have it lower and AAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

All I can say is, I am SO glad I live in a time with computers!