I’m dreaming of a world without pencils -- or paper

I can see the blank stares: After more than 1,000 Beaufort County high school students couldn’t finish the ACT last month because of a computer glitch, they were called back in to complete the task … with pencil and paper.

I can also imagine the instructions they had to be given:

“This long yellow rod is your ‘stylus.’ And this little rubber red thing on top is your ‘Ctrl-Z.’ That flat fiber rectangle on the desk is your ‘screen.’ Do not try to make it bigger by pinching and grabbing it. Again, I repeat, using your fingers to zoom in on this will only wrinkle the paper, I mean the ‘screen.’”

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Sign here: Mississippi cursive mandate heads to governor

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I’m not making fun of this. I support a full lack of knowledge when it comes to remembering how paper works, because I truly dislike it.

It’s clutter. I hate clutter.

Sometimes I look at all the books on my shelves and think “I can’t wait to actually read you so I can throw you out.”

But then I picture myself with empty shelves, awkwardly showing my Kindle library to all the guests who walk through my door just so they can see I have a thing for Charles Bukowski.

“See? I’m edgy. Now, please make yourself at home. Can I offer you a drink?”

I love living in a mostly digital, paper-free world, I really do. But lately my anti-paper fixation has left me worried that I might be coming down with whatever imagined disorder my sister has that has caused her to have a strange and strong physical revulsion to buttons since birth. She doesn’t even let them touch her skin. She never has. And whenever she sees them she gets the judgiest look on her face.

Other than that, she’s quite normal.

Just not around most shirts.

And now I’m kind of starting to get that way around newsprint — which isn’t helpful considering what I do for a living, but that’s what the online edition is for.

To me, life is so much better when I am not handed a paper version of it, because … are you seriously handing me a receipt for coffee? Thanks, I’ll just stick that in my wallet so it can look completely disorganized.

This past week I had an appointment at an imaging center on Hilton Head Island, and I almost cried with happiness … and not just because the test came back normal: They handed me a tablet instead of paperwork at the receptionist desk. No pen. No paper. Just a screen. The angels sang. This is the future.

I didn’t have to balance a clipboard on my lap or cross out that annoying “e” I sometimes write at the end of “Elizabeth” by accident or be told “Ma’am, you didn’t fill out the other side of these five pages.” It was just bloop bloop bloop and done. It even had a place to swipe my credit card, which I used without thinking. So now they can bill me whenever they want, I guess.

Or the Russian hackers can.

Either way.

This story was originally published April 2, 2017 at 6:08 PM with the headline "I’m dreaming of a world without pencils -- or paper."