Esther Silvius
Magazine and Feature Writing
Mr. Fred DeArmond
January 26, 1959
My typewriter is a black and chromium monster with a vocabulary larger than any dictionary. It has no mind, so it cannot think. It has no mouth, so it cannot speak. It can’t even hear; yet it obeys my slightest command. It sits there, silent as a tomb, until I tap it with my fingers. Then it comes to life and clatters and bangs, but I can silence it just by raising my hands. It writes letters, but cannot read them; it makes mistakes, but doesn’t care; it just sits there.
My typewriter is a prison without bars and I its prisoner. I am free to leave it for only a few minutes during the day, but at night it is perfectly contented to be left alone. When I do leave, it sits and pouts and refuses to do anything until I return.
It is a fiend for punctuality and forces me to release it from its resting place promptly at eight-thirty each morning. It is as helpless as a baby and has to be cleaned every day. An inked ribbon is its voice and unless I provide it with a new one it speaks so softly it can hardly be heard.
It is a selfish beast and requires more of my time and attention than it takes to keep an entire house. It has such a jealous disposition that when I leave it to answer the phone, or to greet a caller, it retaliates by misspelling some simple word.
Like an ordinary man it has its good days and its bad ones. Sometimes it is easy to get along with, but more often it acts like a diabolical demon. It deliberately does things to annoy me, tries my patience almost beyond endurance, and makes me a nervous wreck.
It is especially adept at inflicting physical punishment. It breaks my fingernails, causes my head to ache, and my back to feel as if it were breaking.
I am bound to this monster by the check I receive each week and it holds me as securely as the strongest chain. Because of this one factor, I take the punishment and the vituperation that only a typewriter can inflict on a human being.