I Took Typing for Granted — Until My Spacebar Broke
My spacebar has been broken since Monday. I press it and nothing happens. I don’t know what I did to it, but my best guess is that a chip of nail polish got wedged in my keyboard. I’m really not sure.
Since then, I’ve been DEEP in online support forums, Googling keyboard advice, using every air-blowing keyboard cleaner contraption I can find, turning my laptop upside down, sticking post-its into the gaps between the keys, and restarting my computer. Nothing works.
EverythingItypelookslikethis.
I’m not ready to accept defeat. I keep hoping my spacebar will magically start working again.
So, rather than bring my laptop to the store to get fixed, I’ve developed some workarounds. Here are some of my preferred methods:
How to Cope without a Spacebar:
#1 — Use my iPhone to type instead. Not sustainable long-term.
#2 — Write a draft on my computer and add in spaces using my phone. Very painful and mind-numbing; do not recommend. Especially when autocorrect gets involved. Also, can be difficult to decipher what I wrote becauseitalllookslikethis.
#3 — Copy a space, then paste it between letters instead of hitting spacebar. It’s taken a few days to get used to the muscle memory of hitting Control-V instead of spacebar, but it’s passable. Allows me to type in real time, rather than add in spaces retroactively (see: method #2).
#4 — Acceptance. This is who I am now. Behind the beautifully formatted and punctuated text you are reading, is a person without a working spacebar. Sometimes, I just don’t feel like adding spaces. They’re a lot of work. In this situation, it helps to be upfront with my recipient. I’ll generally write a quick note, like: “MykeyboardhasbeenbrokensinceMonday” or “MyspacebarisstuckandIdon’tknowwhy!” This lets the recipient know something is very wrong with my computer, but more importantly, it puts the onus on them to decipher the jumble of letters they’re about to receive. Meanwhile, I get to be myself again! It feels so freeing to type without spaces — like ripping off a pair of constricting pants after a long day. Look, if you can’t accept me without spaces, you don’t deserve me with proper punctuation. On that note, I’m sorry to all my friends who have received messagesfrommewithoutspaces.
If there’s anything I’ve learned this week, it’s that I’ve been taking typing for granted. I never appreciated how easy I had it with a working keyboard. Next time I catch myself complaining that writing every day is hard, I’ll remind myself of the week I spent MANUALLY ADDING SPACES to every single thing I wrote. That should help put things back into perspective.
In the meantime, this is my life now:
Post 16/100 of my 100 day writing challenge for 100 Naked Words.
