It’s more Oh than OK as my laptop’s keyboard has decided to drop a letter

Ihave no more ks. Or at least, what ks I have need to be pounded out with the middle finger of my weaker right hand if they are to show up at all. In the old days, on a more primitive Mac keyboard, I would have simply levered the k key off its perch and removed the piece of pistachio nut — an educated guess and my go-to snack for work — that was lurking underneath. But I had a little speculative pick at this current, sleeker keyboard and it all seems to be linked up. The k key’s connected to the j key, and so on and so forth.

Anyway, without me making a superhuman effort to strike the k, the letter has disappeared from my writing. It took me a little while to notice: it was only through reading back strings of emails that I spotted that I was no longer not giving a f*** what the Operation Transformation leaders’ hydration levels were, I was now just not giving a f**.

But you still know what I mean. And that got me thinking: do I actually need ks in my life?

Now, regular readers will know I have form on this. Last year, when the chip failed in my debit card, I elected to live a reduced life without access to cash instead of just getting a new card, which would have been the saner response (I have since got a new card; I am mad, but not that mad.) I lived for many years with a dishwasher that could only be opened by sticking some masking tape to its dilapidated door and pulling like a dog. And when the fs on my phone failed in much the same way as the ks have now quit my keyboard, I attempted to carry on living my best life without using the letter f. Which, since my name begins with that fated letter, would most likely have involved changing my name by deed poll if all the other letters on that phone hadn’t also given up the ghost shortly after.

In any event, I think a life without fs would be considerably more challenging that living without ks.

Let’s take a moment to consider the value of k. For openers, the letter is frequently silent at the start of words, so brings very little to the party on that front. If I nocked on your door, you’d still open it (or, more likely these days, hide.) If I was standing in your driveway in my nickers, you’re rightly call the guards. Then there is the natural superiority of the C. Two of my children’s names sound as though they might begin with K but actually begin with C. When you think of it, there are very few words that begin with K that couldn’t just as easily start with a C.

It’s worth remembering that there’s no k in the Irish language, which has staggered on regardless since pre-history. Gaeilge also dispenses with most of the latter letters in the alphabet, which I always suspected was more down to poor concentration than any linguistic effort on our ancestors’ part. But their point — that you really only need 18 letters to get by — is well made, even if they over-compensated for their lack of letters with spectacularly convoluted grammar.

To make some sort of a case for k, it has a score of five in Scrabble which makes it neither one of those high scoring gamechangers nor the kind of letter that makes you sad when it lands on your rack. Some people would probably baulk at the idea of having Special C for breakfast. The Kardashians would cease to exist. And I think that dropping the K from Kilkenny, Kildare and my beloved Kerry would annoy the people who live there, even if they all started off with Cs instead of the perfidious anglicized Ks.

In any case, I’m not proposing that the whole world gives up on k — just that I do. I am mindful that there will be some domestic collateral damage to the sundering of my relationship with the letter. My sister’s name begins with K and The Small Girl’s professional name is also styled with a K.

A twin-pronged family feud is the obvious solution to this.

Alternatively, I suppose I could try to get my laptop fixed. I do, after all, make my living from writing and however brave my personal odyssey, the letter k remains something of an occupational hazard. I will review my situation later.

First, after the repetitive strain injury and sheer exhaustion of banging 40ks into this column, I need a lie down.