Shift Key

The other night as I sat typing, a large and aggressive mosquito became interested in me. Over the years, I have learned that I am quite attractive to mosquitos. For years I believed it to be my magnetic personality, charm, and good looks, but further research has revealed that some people emit certain odors and have certain skin characteristics that mosquitos find fascinating. I myself am rich in folic and lactic acid in my skin apparently. If a mosquito is near, it will find me! Luckily, I have good hearing and can generally hear one before it feasts on me for too long.

I recall a strange moment in college when I was playing in the Abilene Philharmonic and getting ready for a Ferrante and Teicher concert. A mosquito enjoyed my arm for quite awhile before I noticed, he then flew to my music where I quickly sent him to mosquito heaven. The result, however, was a bloody spot and a dead mosquito on the 2nd horn part of the Ferrante and Teicher music. Eleven years later, I was playing 1st horn in a different orchestra and getting ready for a Ferrante and Teicher concert (it now seems rather fortuitous to have had the "pleasure" of doing two Ferrante and Teicher concerts in my career). The 2nd horn player began laughing and pointed out a circled red spot and an encrusted mosquito on the music. It was my old friend, the mosquito! Along with the circled spot were years of creative comments from other horn players. I am happy to report I had provided many years of linguistic enjoyment for many horn players.

Anyway, let me move to the present again. I was typing on my computer when a large mosquito flew near my face and landed on my hand. In my frantic efforts to discourage his meal, my finger got hooked on the left shift key and removed it in the same motion I removed the mosquito from his current living state. Although pleased with the mosquito results, I was not pleased with the loss of the shift key.

I am now typing without a left shift key and am having to press firmly and specifically on a funny little rubber point located in the center of where the former shift key had been. It is awkward and uncomfortable. As often happens when we lose something we had once taken for granted, I am now learning to appreciate not just the shift key, but all the keys.

But the saddest thing of all is that no matter how shifty it may seem, when a musician loses the key, nothing goes right!