Apparently one can enter Lego speed champion contests. Given that it took me ten days to assemble the typewriter, breaking only to gargle and cut my toenails, I would have as much chance of winning one of those challenges as I would of breaking the current Rubik’s Cube world-record solution time of 3.47 seconds, which is faster than I can say Rubik’s Cube world-record solution time of 3.47 seconds.

So I probably won’t be attempting the new 9000-piece LEGO Titanic, because, well, it’s titanic, even though there’s a YouTube video demonstrating how to do it in 10 minutes, which, according to an expedition financed by The History Channel, is twice as long as it took the real ship to sink.

But I am improving, making fewer mistakes than on earlier projects. And I spend less time searching for pieces now that I organize the bricks from each newly-opened bag on the table as if they were instruments on a tray in an operating room, which is only appropriate since half my life these days is spent wearing surgical masks.

I have a couple writing projects coming up, and my 44-year-old computer is running out of memory (and I can’t remember what to do about it), so I started looking around for a certified pre-owned, more recent model with limited key strokes on it, maybe from an estate sale of someone who only used it on Sundays.

But with the chip and truck driver shortages, and shipping containers piling high in Savannah, I wasn’t the only one knocking on doors to find Windows.

Then inspiration hit me like a ton of bricks, or more accurately, like 2079 bricks, and I decided to go old school and get a typewriter, or rather build a reportedly somewhat functional one out of LEGOs.

I’ve forgone my previous day-to-day reporting on construction projects and am proud to announce that I’ve made it through the first four bags of pieces since I put my tunnel visor on and went straight to the object of my desire at the LEGO store, without allowing myself to be tempted by whatever other sirens within might be calling my name.

I can already sense manuscriptorial (I thought and hoped I made this word up, but, alas, found that someone beat me to it in a publication available on ResearchGate) inspiration emanating from my work now that I have the keys in place.