Tick-tick-tick-tick-DING!
So here I am yesterday afternoon (Thursday, June 28, 2007) quietly resting in the dentist’s motorized Barcalounger having my teeth cleaned (semi-annual cleaning) by the nice dental-hygienist......
.....when suddenly I hear from an adjacent anteroom: “Tick-tick-tick-tick-DING!”
“Good golly, Miss Molly,” I say; “what in the wide, wide world is that?”
“Sounds like an actual typewriter. Call the Antique Typewriter Society!”
“Yes; that’s what it is,” the dental-hygienist says, sheepishly. “We’re kind of embarrassed.”
Last typewriter I saw was the ancient Smith-Corona my 90-year-old mother-in-law always drags out, wanting us to fix it — the ribbon doesn’t advance.
Linda’s old Smith-Corona from college rests in its case in our living-room — retired about eight years ago when I found I could get Quicken to print checks.
We also still have the word-processing typewriter we did the house spec-book on — a ‘pyooter/printer combination will run circles around it.
The dentist’s Selectric begs two questions:
-1) The first question, which I was tactful enough to not ask (since I did once before, prompting weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth) is when, if ever, is the dentist going to drag butt into the new century?
......and........
-2) The second question is where do you ever get the sucker fixed if it goes haywire?
I like our dentist; we’ve had the same dentist almost 40 years.
Long ago he cheerfully repaired five years of deferred maintenance, and also pulled four impacted wisdom-teeth, two at a time. (And it was a bloody struggle.)
He started out in downtown Rochester, but eventually moved to the ‘burbs when a new medical-plaza was built.
I remember when that plaza was being built; I drove bus by it, and a giant windstorm blew down all the roof-trusses — they had to start over.
Our dentist is older than us, but apparently re-upped his office-lease for another five years.
He’s a tub-thumping conservative, and likes to hunt big game. Yesterday he was yammering to an older patient about an upcoming hunting-trip to Laramie, Wyoming. (We chased Union-Pacific 3985 in Laramie, when it was still burning coal.)
He lives not too far away, out in the country like us. He has pastures and raises sheep.
No ‘pyooter though; and I doubt he’ll ever get one.
He’s probably a little intimidated.
So our billing is copies of typewritten ledger-cards.
.....when suddenly I hear from an adjacent anteroom: “Tick-tick-tick-tick-DING!”
“Good golly, Miss Molly,” I say; “what in the wide, wide world is that?”
“Sounds like an actual typewriter. Call the Antique Typewriter Society!”
“Yes; that’s what it is,” the dental-hygienist says, sheepishly. “We’re kind of embarrassed.”
Last typewriter I saw was the ancient Smith-Corona my 90-year-old mother-in-law always drags out, wanting us to fix it — the ribbon doesn’t advance.
Linda’s old Smith-Corona from college rests in its case in our living-room — retired about eight years ago when I found I could get Quicken to print checks.
We also still have the word-processing typewriter we did the house spec-book on — a ‘pyooter/printer combination will run circles around it.
The dentist’s Selectric begs two questions:
-1) The first question, which I was tactful enough to not ask (since I did once before, prompting weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth) is when, if ever, is the dentist going to drag butt into the new century?
......and........
-2) The second question is where do you ever get the sucker fixed if it goes haywire?
I like our dentist; we’ve had the same dentist almost 40 years.
Long ago he cheerfully repaired five years of deferred maintenance, and also pulled four impacted wisdom-teeth, two at a time. (And it was a bloody struggle.)
He started out in downtown Rochester, but eventually moved to the ‘burbs when a new medical-plaza was built.
I remember when that plaza was being built; I drove bus by it, and a giant windstorm blew down all the roof-trusses — they had to start over.
Our dentist is older than us, but apparently re-upped his office-lease for another five years.
He’s a tub-thumping conservative, and likes to hunt big game. Yesterday he was yammering to an older patient about an upcoming hunting-trip to Laramie, Wyoming. (We chased Union-Pacific 3985 in Laramie, when it was still burning coal.)
He lives not too far away, out in the country like us. He has pastures and raises sheep.
No ‘pyooter though; and I doubt he’ll ever get one.
He’s probably a little intimidated.
So our billing is copies of typewritten ledger-cards.
posted by BobbaLew at 10:08 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home