Mrs. Lennan's Typewriter

If you walk down St. George’s Street almost to the end, there is a driveway. It is all overgrown with maple trees, oaks, and elms, and a lot of miscellaneous shrubbery, and it curves around fourteen azalea bushes and seven rhododendrons before it gets to a little brown house. That is the Lennans’ house, where Mr. and Mrs. Lennan live. Mrs. Lennan is a poet. She writes poems all day long, and one day Mr. Lennan went to her and said, “Dear?”

He always spoke like that, with question marks at the end, because he wasn’t quite sure what Mrs. Lennan would answer or what kind of mood she was in. So he said to her that day, “Dear?”

“Mmm,” said Mrs. Lennan without looking up. “What rhymes with ‘pixie’?”

“Blixie?” said Mr. Lennan.

Mrs. Lennan wrinkled her nose. “There’s no such word,” she said disgustedly.

“Oh?” said Mr. Lennan. He wasn’t really surprised. Blixie didn’t sound like much of a word.

“I need a typewriter,” said Mrs. Lennan. “I am, after all, a poet of the twentieth century. Quill pens are out of fashion. So is Emily Dickinson. So I need a typewriter.”

“They cost a great deal of money, don’t they?” said Mr. Lennan timidly. He had learned that when Mrs. Lennan wanted something it usually cost a great deal of money. “And besides, we are going to have a baby—at least I thought we were?”

“Oh, all right, Scrooge,” said Mrs. Lennan. “I will be a seventeenth century poet, scratching out my measly little words on faded parchment scrolls. But don’t blame me if my production falls off. What rhymes with ‘calliope’?”

Mr. Lennan wasn’t even sure what or who a calliope was, so he didn’t say anything. And before too long, Mrs. Lennan presented him—ungraciously to be sure—with a brand new baby boy.

“What shall we call him?” asked Mr. Lennan.

“Qwertyuiop,” said Mrs. Lennan.

“Quertuiope?” said Mr. Lennan.

“Qwertyuiop,” said Mrs. Lennan.

“Is that the name of a poet?” asked Mr. Lennan suspiciously. “Because our little boy is not going to be named for some faggy swisher.”

“Oh be quiet,” said Mrs. Lennan.

In due time, another baby boy was born to the Lennan family.

Mr. Lennan, who did not learn very quickly, went to his wife and said, “What shall we call our second born?”

“Asdfghjkl,” said Mrs. Lennan shortly. “What did you think we’d call him? John, or Don, or Tom?”

“Azdifaugh Jackal?” said Mr. Lennan. “I know that is some faggy fairy pansy name. Why can’t we call him Chuck after my grandfather, or Pete after your grandmother?”

“Asdfghjkl,” said Mrs. Lennan, and that was that.

And, anyway,” said Mr. Lennan, “how come we have two boys? I only ordered one.”

“What rhymes with toadstool?” said Mrs. Lennan.

And so Qwertyuiop and Asdfghjkl grew bigger and stronger and more like people, and one day Mrs. Lennan said, “We will have one more child.”

And sure enough, they did. This time it was a brand new baby girl.

“Sue, Sarah, Mary Jane, Lizzie?” suggested Mr. Lennan. “Or how about Marcia, Lillian, Lenore, Janet? Or perhaps you prefer Ruth, Alice, Mabel?”

Mrs. Lennan shook her head. “Zxcvbnm,” she said implacably.

“Zackscov Binnum?” repeated Mr. Lennan. “Zackscov Binnum? But that’s a boy’s name.”

“Tough shit,” said Mrs. Lennan. “I told you I wanted a typewriter.”