I live with a typewriter habit. Some people sneak cigarettes or whiskey. I sneak Olivettis and Royals. The problem isn’t just storage space. The problem is my partner, whose memory is forensic and whose eyebrow can arch higher than a carriage return lever.
Every acquisition turns into a covert operation. I circle delivery windows like a hawk, timing the doorbell so I can intercept the package before she even stands up. Then comes the smuggling—sliding the machine past the living room like I’m auditioning for a low-budget spy film. Once it’s hidden, I shuffle other objects around the apartment to create camouflage. A lamp gets moved, a stack of books tilts strategically, and suddenly that new Smith-Corona “blends in.” At least in my mind.
She notices everything. The tiniest shift, the faintest click-clack that doesn’t sound like the others. She doesn’t yell. She files it away in her mental archive, biding her time. All it takes is one slip—an extra ribbon in the drawer, an instruction manual sticking out of a shelf—and she’ll stand there, waiting for me to explain why the house has mysteriously acquired another twenty pounds of iron and keys.
So I keep typing louder, hoping the noise will cover my tracks.
I learned the hard way that modern surveillance hates me. We added a Ring doorbell because she liked the idea of “security” and because it kept catching our deliveries in crisp little videos. The Ring didn’t just record packages. It recorded my face, the furtive angles, the way I tried to hustle a boxed typewriter past the stoop. The footage lives in the cloud and in her memory. She watches it the way other people watch thrillers. Once she started checking deliveries, every operation required a new level of theatre. I started timing drives, inventing errands, and enlisting neighbours to sign for things. The Ring turned every attempt into evidence. It also taught me something: the smarter the house, the harder it is to be a successful smuggler.
Tips — How I try to buy one without her noticing
I treat buying typewriters like a covert op.
I buy cash in person when I want no digital trail. I use in-store pickup under a different name and vanish on a lunch break. Deliveries get rerouted to work or a friend's flat. I ask sellers for boring, plain packaging so the box screams "printer ink" not "antique weapon." If a courier insists on ringing, I bribe a neighbour with coffee and moral ambiguity to accept it. I bring it home disguised under groceries or laundry, adopt a perfectly mild smile, and wait while she files the moment in her mental evidence locker.
She turns inventory into a ritual.
She drags a notebook to the kitchen table, flips it open, and uses tidy columns like an accountant hunting smugglers. Make. Model. Weight. Location. Date acquired. She crosses off items with a small, satisfied scratch. The pen is precise. Her face is not.
The checks come without warning. She'll stroll through the house, stop, tilt her head, and say, "When did this arrive?" The question is a scalpel. Guests get the play-by-play. She reads serial numbers aloud like a judge reading charges. People lean in. I try to charm. Charm is a soft tissue injury in these moments.
If I've stayed within the limits we set, she narrows her eyes, files it away, and lets me keep breathing. If I bought more than agreed she stages it. First the quiet. Then the scene. She pulls out the notebook, flips to the totals, and the room grows suddenly smaller. She lists every extra ribbon, every surprise carriage, every boxed manual I forgot to hide. Her voice is low. It sounds calm. It is not forgiving.
The interrogation is theatrical. She doesn't shout. She catalogues. She asks for receipts like evidence. She makes me explain my logic out loud. My explanations sound threadbare beside the ledger. Neighbours who once thought me eccentric now exchange sympathetic looks. I make jokes. They land like misfired keys.
After the show comes the verdict. A ban on acquisitions for a set time. A requirement to consult before any purchase over a trivial sum. Or a creative penalty, like me staging a weekend of reorganising all the machines so they are catalogued, dusted, and labelled under her supervision. She enjoys that part. I do the work and she watches, smug and efficient, marking progress with that same neat scratch of ink.
In the end, I’ve accepted that my covert skills will never match my enthusiasm for cast-iron keys. The ledger will open, the eyebrow will rise, and the Ring will catch me red-handed again. But if loving typewriters is a crime, I’ll happily serve a life sentence. So keep hunting, keep collecting, and keep sneaking beautiful machines home. Every click and clack is worth the risk.
