My current keyboard has a little flaw, if you will. The piece of plastic that holds the :; key on top of the rubber that touches the microchip is broken and that blasted little square keeps popping up or changing positions. It wouldn’t be an issue BUT when I learned to type I was always instructed to always keep your fingers on your “home row” and well this dratted key is part of the home row so it feels really awkward. What’s funny is, you don’t realize how much you move the fingers that aren’t pressing keys until you have a loose key square and you keep inadvertently knocking the thing out of place!!

Then, every so often, the thing pops up so much you MUST fix it, which results in:

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Yes, that’s how long I had to hold it to get it to snap back into place.

Yet, I LOVE this laptop. I bought it in 2012 after my son Eddie who was six at the time accidentally dropped its predecessor on the steps of a hotel on our trip to Gettysburg. I myself have dropped this ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; (see did, it again) particular computer myself a short distance and scuffed up the the metal ;;;; edge right where my wrists rest! No, it doesn’t feel good–and I’ve even tried “filing” ;;;;; it down, but it didn’t make a huge difference. This laptop has been with me all sorts of places: the food court where I met a pimp who offered me a job, it’s flown with me to Phoenix, New Orleans, Dallas, Kansas City; has attended;;; countless lunch dates with John & Carolina, Amelia and Elijah, Henry and Laura, Wes and Allison, Jack and Ella, Gray and Michaela, and Sebastian and Belle at Panera ;;;;;;;. (The majority of the other books were written after I stopped going to Panera to write.);;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

This laptop and I have a history together and I cannot end the relationship–though I probably should. I will say that because the key issue annoys the daylights out of me, I don’t hardly use it for excessive typing anymore, but I still cannot bear to let it go.

QUESTION: Do you have something you SHOULD throw away but just cannot bring yourself to let it go because of your sentimental attachment? Or do you say “It’s just stuff” and give it the old heave-ho?

(By the way, I do have another computer that I use regularly to get things done and while I am sentimentally attached, I am overwhelmed at the idea of trying to move all the files and info from this computer to another. So that has helped me to hang onto it, too.