An Honest Bargain

 March 10, 2022

“If I don’t force myself to do it, pretty soon I won’t do it at all; I need the discipline to keep my mind from getting lazy.” I had been lamenting having to write a nightly article even when I couldn’t come up with anything significant to put to paper (or in this case, keyboard). Linda asked me why I didn’t just not write on the days when nothing seems to be working. There are days when ideas flow freely, but more often than not, it’s a struggle, especially since retirement has slowed the pace of my life considerably.

Tonight there were no basketball games, no school or church functions, no one over for dinner, so we went for a walk through town, from one end to the other. It didn’t take very long. When we got back, I told her I needed to try out my new keyboard, and she said, “Why don’t you write about that?” Granted, a keyboard is not the stuff of great literature unless a great novelist happens to be using it. No such luck here. There is a backstory however, and I gladly share it with you tonight. 

I bought my first iPad some ten or more years ago, and with it a Zagg keyboard which turned it almost into a laptop. The old iPad got seriously out of date about three years ago, so I bought the one I’m using now. The old keyboard didn’t quite fit, but was useable, so it happily tagged along for the ride with the new machine. For the past year or so however, the battery has been fading, and when it gets weak, the keyboard gets wonky, adding or subtracting keystrokes at random. Last week, even on an overnight charge, it barely got me through my nightly article.

In and of itself, this story wouldn’t be worth noting except for two facts. The first is my experience at the Apple store. I went there expecting to buy a new iPad with keyboard. For all the years I’ve had this, I figured most of the storage memory would be gone, but the young man at the store checked it out and said, “You have plenty of storage; you’ve only used half of what’s available.” He then told me they didn’t have any keyboards in stock, but I could try Best Buy if I didn’t want to wait to order one.

Best Buy didn’t have any, so I checked Amazon. Second fact: a thirty-five dollar keyboard and free delivery in two days! An honest salesman at the store saved me from paying $500 on a new machine and keyboard, and I got a bargain keyboard to boot! I LOVE a good bargain!

So tonight, I am writing without all the glitches of the old keyboard, having saved about $450 from what I had expected to pay. I am grateful tonight for an honest salesman, for a store that didn’t have what I wanted, and for an online bargain. It’s not world-shaking stuff, except perhaps for the honest salesman, but I am thankful nonetheless to be able to continue writing so my mind doesn’t turn to mush.