tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-DING!-whoosh-tap-tap...

So..summer is here and even though the kids have so much freedom here on post...they still get "bored". I cannot tell you the number of times I have said to them, "My mom did not spend the summer months thinking of ways to entertain me!!! GO PLAY!...No, you may not have a yard sale...no, we are not checking the Internet to see if there are cheap tickets to Kentucky...no, I was never bored when I was your age (okay...THAT is a little lie...but Mary, Elizabeth and I were pretty creative!)...no, you may not take your mattress outside and make an orphanage for your beanie babies..WHY? because I will be dragging it back in the house during a storm, THAT'S WHY!....."

So, after lunch we piled in the van and went to the "Dead Man's Store". What's that? You don't know what that is? Okay...when a German person dies (see?? There's the name right out of the gate!) they leave things to relative just like we do. However, you pay taxes on every last morsel. E-V-E-R-Y L-A-S-T M-O-R-S-E-L. And so, relatives keep what is most important to them and take the rest to the "Fairkauf" (Second Hand Store)...but because Americans are Americans..they nicknamed it the "Dead Man's Store". Everything in there comes from a dead man.....hmmmm...morbid. Okay...we went and I only had 10 Euros but I was determined to find something fun for a rainy German day. And there it was (insert angels singing loudly!!!) a typewriter. Straight from the 60's......and for the grand price of 1 EURO! That's about $1.62. Oh, for heaven's sake...could it be? I put it's little case on it...took it to the cashier and gave her a euro....and we went home. I cannot give justice to the squealing and fascination that happened after that. The kids have been typing all afternoon....marvelling at how the little arms rise out of the machine like skeletons popping out of a graveyard and how the ink justs sits on the tape without "spilling"...."OH, LOOK! You hit it hard and you get a dark letter and you hit it soft and you get a light letter....AHHHHHH!!!! IT DINGS!!!!!!.....This is like magic!!!.....I'm going to write a story.....WE CAN MAKE A NEWSPAPER and SELL IT!!!....." And thus....tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-DING!-whoosh-tap tap tap.....

Meanwhile.....only 10 feet away.....sits the $1000 computer....and if you are quiet, you can hear it whimper because while you can make it tap tap tap....it is a shallow tap...not a hearty tap. And while it can make amazing noises...it has no sweet little "ding" from a mystery bell and mystery bell dinger... And while it has buttons...it has no shiny, silver arm that you can reach up with your left hand and slide an entire bar back in place. It is a marvel of technology but it can never be a 1 euro typewriter that needed a home and a fresh perspective. Our little "Tippa S" will be loved for a long time. And who knows? We may just be on the cusp of something here.

Instead of chasing the new....embracing the old....and finding new love for it.