To boot, my birthday was last week, jeering on another year.

When I was younger my family had an Apple IIc. I was pretty pissed about it because all of the good games seemed to be for the Apple IIe. I had to settle for a pixelated Carmen San Diego and embarking on a pretty damn stagnant Oregon Trail. Those wheels may have been turning, but that Conestoga on screen NEVER MOVED.

I think it goes without saying that I was a weird kid. I mean, we all were in our different ways. I just happened to be a half-ethnic emotionally stunted girl with authority issues who liked type A reclusive "games" (i.e. playing JCPenney catalogue service... answering fake phone calls and filling out fake orders on fake papers that I'd make my Dad copy for me at his work).

In one of my various iterations of cubicle-dwelling corporate minion, I had a typing tic of sorts. I would practice over and over typing out my full name, first and last, followed by: this is your life.

Pants McSlacks, this is your life.


That was probably my conscience trying to wake me up and realize I should go out and see the sunshine where other kids played, but I interpreted it as proof positive that some day I would be on that show, "This is Your Life."

I don't think it exists any more. In fact, I'm not entirely sure it even existed in the 80s when I would have been doing this... regardless of how I knew about this show, I would imagine being on television listening to voiceovers of characters in my short life and practice thinking really hard about who they were.

I think somehow doing this Pants McSlacks this is your life business ingrained in me from an early age the layout of the QWERTY keyboard.

I guess.

I don't know. I also played a lot of piano so my fingers were pretty used to working independently of one other.

All this to say, I'm a fast typer.

Growing up my next door neighbor had that Mavis Beacon typing game which was basically like nerd girl crack. You had to type and type and type the words that flashed across the screen and whatever velocity you achieved was how far your little car went. 100 words per minute was a mile. Et cetera.

Any mistakes became bugs on the windshield. And you better believe that that overt stigmata of failure was damn fine motivation for a spaz like me.

So today I was minding my own business, typing up my progress notes on patients for the day, when I realized the new med student was staring at my hands. Had she identified her identical hand twin?

I wish. That would've earned her some cred for getting a Joey Tribianni reference.

No. Instead she commented, "You must be an AOL Instant Messenger baby."

I looked at her.

"What?"

"You're typing so fast, you must have been bred on AIM."

"You... weren't?"

"No, that's more of a your generation thing. We text."

We.

It was worse than the time my Physician Assistant students didn't understand when I introduced a discussion of supernumerary nipples with a reference to the magical entry of Narnia.

They're nubbins, people! Nubbins!