DAY TWO. Tonight, as I walked away from Office Warehouse with my brand new Olympia Traveller Deluxe, I was momentarily in deep thought: how was it possible that I have been in and out of that place, unaware that I was sharing a room with a shelf full of typewriters? How, Riz?

Let it be known that today, July 24, 2009, I found my first typewriter. At Office Warehouse. In the same shelf where the printers, calculators, and USB gadgets are. Right beside the office desks where I’d usually hang out checking out stuff I need for my home office. How come I didn’t notice the typewriters there before?

2/30. Meet Henry, My Olympia Traveller Deluxe

It wasn’t love at first sight though, mind you. You see, a few hours earlier, I was able to get my hands on an actual, oh-wow-I-can-feel-it-in-my-fingers vintage Hermes 3000 at the Grand Thrift Shop at Cubao Expo. The guy was selling it to us at PhP 2900, waaay cheaper than the $250 (+$150 shipping) unit I’ve been considering to purchase from an Etsy store. But the Hermes 3000 at Cubao-X was old and rickety and unmaintained. It could type a bit, but it kept getting stuck. The owner said he was selling it mostly as a decorative element.

But I wanted a typewriter I can use!

So we left, had dinner, and passed by Office Warehouse because I still couldn’t get over the fact that I almost got myself a Hermes 3000. And there it was. The Olympia Traveller Deluxe. It wasn’t eyecandy as the other typewriters I saw online, but I had to try it. The moment I started typing, and heard the clickity-clackity sound that came with each press of a key, I knew I found my first typewriter.

I have to forgive myself for breaking the habit and posting 2 hours late (MNL time), on my 2nd-friggin-day into this 30-day challenge. I prepared a different post for this day, but that was before I knew I was going home with an Olympia tonight.

July 24’s awesome thing has got to be this: finding a typewriter in the most everyday of places and finally getting myself one. A close second would be, finding out that a typewriter ribbon costs 16 pesos at Office Warehouse. That, ladies and gentlemen, was how much technology costed in the yesteryears. Awesomecakes.

And so, my first typecast. (Whut? You don’t know what typecasting is? Hello, Strikethru.)

Reference to the novel by Audrey Niffenegger, “The Time Traveler’s Wife”,
where Clare is the Wife, and Henry, the Traveler.

Jody says she’s a dinosaur for getting attracted to typewriters. So what am I now, giving names to typewriters and writing typing them love letters? A trilobite? Awesome.

30 Days of Awesome, 2/30.