MUM and her electronic typewriter

From my journal, Feb. 3, 1986    
     Mum spent almost $500 on herself! She bought an electronic typewriter. I went down to help her figure out how to use it. After we booted it up, she was afraid it would damage the memory card to have it in the machine while we weren't using it so she pulled it out. All the instructions warn not to pull out the memory card while the machine is on.
     I knew right away the $45 card could be shot. I turned off the typewriter, inserted the card, turned it on again, tried to name, store and retrieve files. Nothing.
     So today she carried typewriter-cum-memory card from her apartment in downtown Long Beach to her (current) car to take it in and see if anything was damaged. She and her dog Miracle were three blocks from home before she realized she had left the typewriter sitting on the curb. By the time she drove back, of course, it was gone.
     She was in a dither the rest of the day--notified police, typewriter shops, pawn shops, the local newspaper. She was so mad at herself.
     I had to laugh. She's had the thing a week and she's already wiped out the memory card and lost the typewriter. Either mistake could have happened to anyone--but they both would have to happen to Mum.
     "You didn't really want a high-tech typewriter anyway," I said.
     "I loved that typewriter," she mourned.

Feb. 11, 1986
     After three days of fasting and prayer, Mum wrote off her typewriter and has gone on with her life. Two Japanese journalists who were coming to write a book with her arrived with 20 ribbons for her no-longer-extant machine.
     Mum picked up the two at LAX. She had to go by bus because her car was being fixed so I drove her to the bus stop. Before we left her apartment I pointed out that one of her burners was on, with an empty kettle sitting on it, and she set her purse down on a chair to go turn the burner off and then didn't know where she'd left her purse. We went outside and she had to drop something off at the apartment building next door. Miracle, who was to come with us, trotted after her. Mum came back, Miracle didn't. Mum was getting into the car when I reminded her about the dog.
     At the bus stop she talked about rose cuttings while I kept a nervous eye out for thugs and pickpockets--despite having her purse stolen twice, she had an open purse over her arm and was totally oblivious to the men lounging nearby. How the Lord does look after her! I guess in part He uses others in her life--like me--to do the surveillance for her.

April 11, 1986
     The latest on Mum's typewriter. After the first one was stolen, she bought a cheaper model but she was already spoiled by the delay feature, enabling her to correct a line of text before it is typed onto the paper, so she traded up to another machine of the original model.
     She was pecking along on it when she smelled burning. The words on the screen were just what she had typed but when she looked at what was showing up on the paper, she saw a page full of gobbledegook--random letters, numbers and punctuation marks. She pulled the plug right away and took it back to the store. It's still on warranty so the salesman promised to fix it but (of course) the computer people there all said they had never seen anything like this problem before.
     They should have seen Mum and the exploding wheat germ.



Today I am thankful for family.