I prefer a nano/mouse to a touchpad on my laptop.

I think I occasionally I may 'fall into' my touchpad
making things happen I didn't intend, like losing
all the text I've spent time putting into something
or other.

I thought 'disabling the touchpad' might
solve my problem.

Well, I can input TouchpadOff=1 to a terminal and
get some temporary relief. But when I try to get the
same action by putting this command in /etc/rc.local,
I get nada, nothing, zilch. Sudos and Sleeps don't help.

I'm not used to being ignored this way by /etc/rc.local.
Can someone explain this to me, or better yet, tell
me how to get what I want?

I just want to write a few symbols somewhere that
will disable my touchpad until such time as I want
to undo this with a similar simple process.

Enormous praise and great fame awaits the first
really good answer to my problem.