weirdness
Today I had to drive out to a distant relation's house to pick up some stuff that my aunt had left there for me.

Along with what I'd gone to pick up, there was a little portable typewriter. I'd told my aunt that I was into typewriters, and, although something about the shape of this particular machine jumped out at me when I first saw it, I figured she had just cleaned out her shed and found some crappy portable to give to me. I didn't make anything too much of it.

Friends, I'm sure I've told you about my typewriter habit before. I've even posted pictures of my machines on the web. I mean, yeah, that's pretty tragic, but I can't help myself. Now go look at them and read that story again before we move on to the next part of the tale.


So I get the typewriter home and open up this note that my aunt has written.

It turns out it's my grandmother's typewriter, the one I used to play on as a kid, the one I had the dream about that sparked this whole ridiculous obsession in the first place.

I thought my parents had junked it years ago when they moved out of the house I grew up in. In fact, I'd asked my mum just last year what happened to that machine, and she told me she couldn't remember what happened to it, but she thought it had gone to the dump.

Turns out it had gone to my cousin to type her high school assignments on in 1988, and my aunt and uncle still had it at their place.

Now it's sitting on my dining room table.

I crack open the case, and yep, that's the one.

It's still got the red baubles they put on the home keys so my blind grandmother could use it.

I lean in and take a big sniff...