Not long ago, I was disgraced by a package of carbon paper. More precisely, I was disgraced by a visit to my local stationer’s, where I tried to buy a package of carbon paper. (I needed to transfer a drawing from surface A to surface B, and it seemed to me, then as now, that carbon paper has endured all these years for expressly that purpose.)
The cashier, a sweet young thing of 20 or so, met my request as though it had been uttered in Klingon. “Carbon ... what?” she stammered, agape. I fled — as fast as my decrepitude would allow.
What is carbon paper?
Carbon paper: Duplicating paper coated with messy black stuff; used between two sheets of white paper in a typewriter.Take that, sweet young thing of 20 or so!
Although I took a typing class and worked at summer jobs doing mostly typing, I never got past 40 wpm with mistakes. Carbon copies were the bane of my existence, even after the advent of Selectric typewriters. Typing was never my forte, but with the advent of the age of the internet I'm quite grateful for my admittedly limited skills, since I'm not forced to hunt and peck. I am compelled to add that I've seen folks hunt and peck with two fingers faster than I can type.
Image from trusty Wikipedia. What would I do without Wikipedia?
Thanks to Paul (A.) for the links. What would I do without Paul (A.)?
