smells like victory

Mary Katharine Ham says:

I loved newspapers. I loved the dusky marks on my fingers that proved I had spent the morning educating myself. I loved the elevator in the old downtown building that carried us from the roar of the press room floor up to the quiet buzz of the newsroom.

It had a metallic smell, and a reddish carpet blotched with ink, and looked, for all the world, like a giant ink pad to a 7-year-old.

Now, rewritten to fit my experience:

I loved computers. I loved the plastic residue on my fingers that proved I had spent all saturday educating myself. I loved the old radio shack tape player that stored my programs with a sound somewhere between a bumblebee and a chainsaw.

It had a electronic smell, and a gray-green screen filled with dots, and looked, for all the world, like an intelligent etch-a-sketch to a 13-year-old.