by Bill Considine
Foreground, left: a comptometer. Douglas G. Cala photo.
Characters:
Shirley – Female
Kitty – Female
Frieda – Female
Peg – Female
All are co-workers, dressed for work in the 1950s.
SHIRLEY is younger than her aunt, PEG.
(At rise, SHIRLEY, FRIEDA and KITTY sit at a lunchroom table. Perhaps one or two are smoking. They talk, laugh.
SHIRLEY stands to address the audience while FRIEDA and KITTY still chat.)
SHIRLEY
The number nine is weird, not just
In numerology superstitions, but
In math, where its weirdness is axiomatic –
Because it’s one less than the base number, ten,
Of our number notation system, the way we write
Numbers in columns of tens.
That has consequences that I cannot explain
Fully, like, every multiple of nine
Is expressed in digits that add up to nine –
18, 27, 36, 45, all have digits adding to nine.
Take any multiple of nine, add its digits, and
Add the resulting digits until you have one digit left
And that number will be nine.
KITTY
More important in world history,
In our universe made of math, are nines’ complements.
The nines’ complement is the difference between a digit and nine.
The nines’ complement of 4 is 5,
The nines’ complement of 7 is 2, etcetera.
You can subtract numbers by adding:
Let’s do 78 minus 34.
Take the larger number’s nines’ complement,
So 78 converts to 21.
Add that to the number to be subtracted, 34:
21 plus 34 makes 55.
Then take the nines’ complement of the result:
The nines complement of 55 is 44.
“Voila!” as I’d wager Pascal must have said!
44 – the right answer. You can subtract by adding!
– Using nines complements.
In San Diego and Seattle, not as Rosie the Riveter, but In offices, calculating on comptometer. It started as men’s work, but soon was women’s.
SHIRLEY
Because we do all the work in our heads –
Lots of mental subtractions from nine.
FRIEDA
Over three hundred fifty years ago,
Blaise Pascal used this insight to create
A machine to do two things, addition
And subtraction, with one set of gears,
A youthful endeavor, at nineteen, his first success,
The Pascaline, improved over centuries
As the arithmometer, the Burroughs business machine,
The comptometer, dominant in offices since 1880,
A maximal calculating machine
On Modernist, mid-twentieth century desktops.
SHIRLEY
The beauty of the machine is, it’s not the machine
That switches tasks and functions
– It only adds – but the operator,
The person, mind and hand, that switches
Nines complement for number, or not,
Subtracts by adding or just adds, fast.
(PEG enters.
SHIRLEY waves to her, gestures an introduction, and continues:)
My dear Aunt Peg worked in the shipyards in World War Two,
In San Diego and Seattle, not as Rosie the Riveter, but
In offices, calculating on comptometer.
(PEG goes to FRIEDA and KITTY.
SHIRLEY hugs PEG and sits.)
FRIEDA
It started as men’s work, but soon was women’s.
After the War, Peg came home
And worked for Westinghouse,
Out by The Old County Airport
– Here, at the Bettis Plant,
Yellow brick buildings behind tall wire fencing,
Clearance procedures and security guards.
Here, skilled labor earned her birthright –
Independence.
A maximal calculating machine On Modernist, mid-twentieth century desktops.
PEG
I did it! I bought a car!
KITTY
Wow!
FRIEDA
Peggy! Fantastic!
PEG
It’s barely a car. It’s a little Nash Rambler.
SHIRLEY
But you don’t know how to drive!
PEG
I bought the car first,
To force me to learn how to drive.
KITTY
That’s smart – I think?
FRIEDA
Where will you go?
PEG
All my life, I’ve gone where buses and
Trolleys could take me, on their schedules.
Now I’ll go wherever, whenever I want!
SHIRLEY
To see your nieces and nephews, I’ll bet.
PEG
The little scamps, I will! And to see Mom.
My brothers and sisters too, of course.
I could even drive to work! I’ll go on trips!
SHIRLEY
You’ll love it. I love to drive.
More women should do it.
KITTY
A lot of men don’t like their wives to drive.
FRIEDA
Right, but it makes no sense. Wives could do more
With a car – shopping, driving the kids places.
They call a “computer,” the UNIVAC. They say it’s thirty feet long and weighs ten tons!
SHIRLEY
The problem, Frieda, is they could drive away
And never come back!
PEG
Well, lucky for me,
I’m spared the husband problem.
Tried it once, didn’t work out. In my new car,
He’s not even in the rear-view mirror.
FRIEDA
Have you started taking lessons?
PEG
I have my first class on Saturday.
FRIEDA
Where’s the car?
PEG
Still at the dealer’s, until I can drive it away.
My first trip, I’m going to take my brother Bob’s boys
To Gettysburg. Get them out of that house
For a few days, so Bob and his wife
Can maybe sort things out together.
The youngest two are about all that can fit
In the back seat, the oldest up front.
The boys will love the battlefield.
I mean, the Gettysburg battlefield.
SHIRLEY
That’s hours away! Would you take the Turnpike?
PEG
Shirley, I’ll take it at Turnpike speeds!
FRIEDA
Start in the slow lane, please! Be careful!
PEG
I’m going to be a woman driver,
With all the old men cursing at me.
SHIRLEY
“Lady drivers, too cautious…”
FRIEDA
“So timid…”
KITTY
“Distracted, dealing with the kids in the car
All the time …”
PEG
Just careful!
FRIEDA
I’ll bet you’ll have a better safety record
Than most men, than ALL men!
PEG
Well, I don’t drink.
I saw firsthand what that could do to a good man.
We read in the papers all the time about
The mayhem drunk drivers make on the roads.
So yes, I will be a better driver than the average man.
FRIEDA
I’m so proud of you! A lady driver!
Well, a car owner – and soon a driver!
PEG
Not the first lady driver, but soon, the newest!
Think of its electric bill – if it runs at all, and Doesn’t blow the fuses for the whole plant!
KITTY
Hooray for you!
PEG
Oh, please, ladies! All I did was buy something!
FRIEDA
Well, I bought something too!
KITTY
What?
FRIEDA
It’s a secret between me and my partner –
SHIRLEY
Your partner? What have you been keeping from us?
FRIEDA
My bridge partner! Peggy!
Okay, I bought Charles Goren’s new book,
Thirty Days to Better Bridge!
PEG
You told them!
FRIEDA
You’re not the only one with news!
KITTY
Oh, dear.
I read that he lays out great new ideas
About counting points and signaling with bids.
FRIEDA
And taking tricks, too, Kitty. Everything.
You’ll find out when Peg and I win all the time.
SHIRLEY
We’d better buy it too – and study, fast!
KITTY
I’ll be in the bookstore Saturday, Shirl.
SHIRLEY
Lunchtime’s half over, and we haven’t played bridge.
KITTY
We had Peggy’s big news!
SHIRLEY
And Frieda’s bad news for Kitty and me!
KITTY
We’ll be fine. We’ll all learn together
From Goren’s new book. We can all discuss it.
We’ll all improve our game. More fun!
FRIEDA
I’m dealing cards. Let’s play two quick hands.
PEG (to the audience)
My whole division love to play bridge at lunchtime.
Men too. The boss plays and the big boss plays
And sometimes the bigger boss plays,
Everyone plays bridge in the cafeteria
Daily, at clusters of four-seat tables.
KITTY
Back in the office, we calculate numbers
On our comptometers.
SHIRLEY (to the audience)
Today, in your world now, the comptometer
Would still be much faster than your pocket calculators,
Where you input with only one finger.
(ONE BY ONE, EACH starts the hand gesture
Of one-handed data input, eyes looking away
To the data on the paper source, as she speaks.
They continue for the rest of the scene.)
KITTY
The comptometer takes your whole hand
Over columns and rows of input keys,
Five fingers at once, your eyes on the paper record,
Not on your hand.
SHIRLEY
Odd number keys are slightly concave, and
Even number keys are flatter, to aid
Finger feel for the keys without looking.
FRIEDA
Electronics has softened the mechanical
Clatter of the old days. And, speeded us up.
PEG
Speed is the essence, so much data, and
Skill essential. Mistakes on comptometer
Are major, a mess, and must be avoided.
I had three months of training first, with pay.
FRIEDA
The nines’ complement is written in smaller script
On each key, for reference in subtracting.
Who needs that? Our eyes are on the records to input.
The operator’s hand never leaves the keys,
One hand in place, fingers always moving
Fast, toting up the bottom lines.
SHIRLEY
Here, the Bettis Plant develops the engine
For a nuclear-powered submarine,
The Nautilus, and the first peaceful uses
For nuclear energy, the power plant
At Shippingsport, PA, as all the while
We add it all up on comptometers.
KITTY
But did you hear? The company bought that thing
They call a “computer,” the UNIVAC.
They say it’s thirty feet long and weighs ten tons!
FRIEDA
Crazy!
KITTY
I hear it will work first on payroll.
SHIRLEY
But payroll’s something we do.
FRIEDA
First, they’ll have to make it work.
PEG
How could it? What a boondoggle.
All the comptometer operators at Bettis,
Put together – and there’s so many –
Don’t weigh ten tons!
KITTY
Maybe after the holidays.
SHIRLEY
I think not,
But we could calculate it quickly.
FRIEDA
That “computer” is dead weight.
Think of its electric bill – if it runs at all, and
Doesn’t blow the fuses for the whole plant!
Puzzling problems, errors, repairs, delays.
“The computer’s down!” they’ll say.
“Give that job back to the girls.”
We’ll be working here till we retire.
PEG
Most calculations will still be made
With female fingers gently, rapidly,
Constantly pushing keys down, the steady
Clatter of desktop comptometers.
FRIEDA
Just as it’s been in offices for decades.
SHIRLEY
O! The odes of old to athletes of Olympus
Praised their speed and skill, their glorious deeds,
And always their beauty, like memories
Once told of the speed, skill, historic deeds
And multitudinous beauty of…
ALL
… Women computing on comptometers!
THE END
BILL CONSIDINE (www.williamconsidine.com) writes poems and plays. His books include a collection of verse plays, The Furies (The Operating System); two poetry chapbooks, Strange Coherence (The Operating System) and The Other Myrtle (Finishing Line Press); and a volume of new poems, Continent of Fire (forthcoming, Kelsay Books). His full-length plays presented in NYC in 2019 include Moral Support and Women’s Mysteries. Short verse plays shown in NYC in 2020 were Aunt Peg and the Comptometer, Persephone’s Return and Odyssey’s End. His new, short comic play A Common Tongue premiered on Zoom in a Polaris North festival in July. He is in his third year as poets theater curator for Boog City. He is a member of Polaris North, a theater artists cooperative, and Brevitas, a poets cooperative. His latest short verse play, John Milton in the Tower, premiered online in the Boog City 30th anniversary celebration earlier this month. Heath Antonio photo.
Aunt Peg and the Comptometer was developed in a workshop led by Bob Holman at Bowery Poetry Club in February 2019. Revised and expanded, it had a reading, directed by Rose-Marie Brandwein, in a Boog City festival at Bowery Poetry Club in February 2020.