Are You Old Enough To Remember?

Pull out your calculators people! It's tax time!

I bent over my desk to add up these receipts.

I got out my trusty twenty-year-old TI-84 Plus graphing calculator, the very one I once-upon-a-time had to teach math students how to use. I hit the "on" button and.... nothing! I had changed the batteries just a week ago. I changed them again.

Still nothing.

The thing was dead, and slated for the garbage..

What to do?! I had to add those receipts up before an upcoming lengthy trip. Must I buy a new one? And where, in this hillbilly town, would I accomplish that? I'd have to drive 30 miles at least to find a calculator up to the task.

"Use the one on your phone" you say?! Pieces of junk, those calculators. I refuse to use them. I'd rather do my calculations by hand, and I do.

Then I remembered! The house I now live in was full to the brim of the previous owners' stuff when I moved in. I'd seen a very old calculator down in the basement. Had it survived the purge of junk I'd effected on the basement? Or had I remembered, perhaps even longed for the days, when I valued those old devices, and had one of those very things on every desk I worked at?

Down the treacherous stairs I went, where I found that I had safely stashed this baby in a cabinet of stuff I thought might come in handy one day! A roll of paper tape alongside it! AND IT WORKS!!!

Once upon a time, I was very good with this type of device. I could input currency figures with the best of them, my right hand typing away, decimals and all, without looking. My left hand flipping bits of paper over rapidly, the paper tape recording every entered figure so that I could peruse the individual entries should my double check (done a double entry way of course, to anyone who has ever done book keeping) fail.

I bet @deirdyweirdy knows exactly what I am talking about here.

Try doing that on your (useless) phone calculator.

I saved two gallons of gas and at least $100 USD buying a new calculator in the nearest larger town.

I am back in business. Those tax returns will get done.

What's in your wallet?