A Sad State of Affairs

I've never recieved any formal typing instruction- ever. Keyboarding was offered as an elective when I was in high school so many moons ago, but I was way too busy with more important life-altering activities like dance and choir (I had 3 elective periods my senior year out of 6 total classes) to take a class that might actually make me life a bit easier.

Now my job actually requires a significant amount of typing for report-writing, but since I'm a self-taught typist, I have a weird habit of neglecting to use the pinkie of my left hand to type any letters which then makes my wrist turn out at a strange angle when I'm typing and causes a bit of discomfort in my wrist occasionally. And in conjunction with being right-handed, I lack a significant amount of dexterity on my left-side.

I really do have a point. I'm getting to it. Slowly. It's called build-up, right? So you, the reader can be sorely disappointed in the end.

Even worse than typing on a keyboard for me is trying to TEXT using the touch-screen on my iPhone. Texting should totally be an Olympic sport. I definitely know some teenagers who can have a lengthy exchange by text faster than Micheal Phelps can swim the 100M whatever-style.

And on an iPhone, you can do so many more things besides calling and texting. I can send emails, update my Facebook status, write a grocery list, and even play the most awesome game ever invented, Tetris.

The problem is that I can only do all of the aforementioned activities with my right thumb. I spent about 6 hours using my iPhone yesterday on our drive out of town to my parents' house for the weekend. I mean, listening to the children whine and cry about the lengthy car ride was like music to my ears and all, but after an hour or so of that I could hardly stand the enjoyment for a moment longer without feeling the desperate desire to shove hot pokers in my ears. My iPhone became a close friend.

Which brings me to a most embarassing admission: I have Texter's Thumb. It's similar to Tennis Elbow, only you develop Texter's Thumb by engaging in significantly less aerobic activity and you end up considerably less fit.

Today my right thumb is protesting all the levels of Tetris I forced it to play and all the texts I forced it to send out yesterday. I have tried to spread the wealth a bit and start using my left thumb to type, but I end up with unrecognizeable words like "vhsngr" rather than "change" or "drr you doob" instead of "see you soon." I just can't quite manage to master the texting technique on a touch screen with my left side.

But, like Michael Phelps' persevered with his swim training, maybe if I continue to practice for several hours a day, eventually I'll be as good of a texter/iPhone game player as the average teenager using BOTH thumbs. What else have I got to do besides raise children, invest in my marriage, and go to work 5 days a week? My only question is will it also be OK to consume massive amounts of calories during my training? Only time will tell.