For about a year, my keyboard was showing signs of aging. Just like me. “Joints” would get stuck, “parts” would stubbornly refuse to cooperate with some hilarious and some not so hilarious results. It had gotten bad enough that my friend and CFO of the company – Hunt – had threatened to buy me a new laptop from the company if I did not change mine.

It started innocuously enough. The letter “A” started getting disfigured. In the end, it was a big circular blob. That did not bother me (come on, I knew which was the “A” button even if the keyboard tried to fool me) as much as the fact that every time I pressed that button, instead of one “a”, two “a”s would come up.

Did I say every time? That would have been a bit easier. Infuriatingly, it would be single “a” at times and then two “a”s at other times. On some very generous moments, the keyboard would type out even three “a”s.

Well, with time, I got used to it. Basically, every time I typed an “a”, I had to look up and press the delete key. This interim truce between the keyboard and me went on for a few months. Not without its own share of hilarious misspellings, though.

There was that time when DJ-PJ’s son Dhir concluded that I must be an avid gamer. Apparently, that button is used in a lot of video games. I am glad he did not venture to ask me what my favorite game was. I do not think I could have named even one if he had asked me to. (I assume Tetris is not played any more?)

The hardest part was dealing with passwords. I can name you all the websites that allow you to see the password you have typed (have you noticed that small “eye” icon?) and those that do not. Bank of America, are you listening? I would have to literally count the “*”s to guess whether I got it right.

Our truce was rudely broken one day when the keyboard decided to throw tantrums with the “s” button too. Same sequence as before… first the letter looked like a disfigured blob and then more “s”es would be thrown in than was desired.

I was determined to clench my jaw and power thru it even as the keyboard was getting really sassy with me. There! Take that “sassy” as an example. Instead of a simple keystroke sequence of

“s”, “a”, “s”, “s”, and “y” it would be something like
“s”, “” , “a”, “”, “”, “s”, [look up to see if there are two s’s already to be take advantage of], “y”

Enough to give one sleepless nights (not that I would have dared to write “sleepless” with that keyboard!).

I still would not give in.

The keyboard retaliated by upping its game. Next key to go down (or rather rise up) was “l”. Now this made life really really hard. Have you ever tried writing “really really hard” and then try counting how many “l”s have been put up? I literally would take me glasses off and pull my face to the screen and squint to see if it looked like three “l” or two “l”s. Meticulously avoided all discussions of lamas. And llamas too!!

The tide irreversibly shifted against me when the Shift key stopped working. The one I use with the right pinky. The confusion of too many a’s, s’s, l’s and then the wrong upper and lower case locked me out of at least two airlines’ websites. I had to call them up and make up a cock and bull story on why I could not get my password right.

I finally waved the white flag and showed up at the Genius Bar at the nearest Apple store.

“Your keyboard has taken quite some beating”, commented Sherri. Clearly, that was not the genius part. The genius part was she was able to get me a new keyboard under 24 hours.

When I went to pick it up, she asked me:
“How would you rate Apple service?”
“Excellent”
“How would you rate Apple products?”
“Excellent”
“What do you like about it?”
“Your delete buttons never cease working!!”

We both had a laugh and I left ready to pound on the new keyboard.

First, a “before” picture for all of you. In a few months, I will have an “after” picture replete with all the food crumbs, beach sand, dropped wine marks….

In the meanwhile, watch me as I type “Assassination”!!!