I fell in love with this when I saw it at the shop: I have never seen an L.C. Smith in such good cosmetic shape. It has replaced the Corona Four as my most beautiful machine. I like to sit in the atrium, where I often work, and ogle it: it’s that type of machine.

But it’s deeply flawed: it’s misaligned, and the shop wasn’t able to fix it. That, however, gave me more leverage  and I got it for a far lower price.

I ordinarily don’t buy typewriters with misaligned type or jumping letters, but I knew I had to have it–there was no denying that. I knew that if I passed, I would regret it. It spoke to me, it beckoned, and I have learned to listen to these instincts.

The capitals print high and the “a” prints either high or low; at best, the machine is  inconsistent. I typed a few pages and, to my surprise, found that the misaligned print didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. I realized that, at least in this instance, feel trumps print precision.

I am sometimes a perfectionist when it comes to machines, but that quality vanishes when I type on this beauty. To paraphrase Dylan Thomas, we learn to love them for their faults.