My mother makes me take typing. Thirty manual typewriters sound like a fire in a popcorn factory.
Bells sound continuously, carriages ratchet back to start new lines.
My slender fingers jam painfully between the keys. Hard, gritty erasers furiously scratch mistakes off master and six carbons. But after two semesters of this aggravation, I can type 50 words per minute without looking. It's now summer and I am thrilled to work in a medical lab as a technician's assistant. I analyze urine, cook up bacteriological media, stain slides, bathe pregnancy-test frogs.