The Futility of Cleaning a Keyboard

Look down at your desk. Do you see your keyboard? See the keys, all in a row. See them raised and separated. The letters just off center so you know where they are. Little bumps on the "f" and "j" keys so your hands know where to rest. 

     You lucky bastards might even have a 10-Key set up over on the right. Real lucky lefties get the opposite.

     Now, you brave library souls, do a thing for me. Pick up your keyboard. Tilt it until it almost is upside down, the keys facing the desk. One edge touching the surface while the other is held by your hand. 

     Tap the back of the keyboard.

     If nothing happened, good for you. You live a charmed life full of joy and no regrets. Santa will come visit you and leave nothing but joy and oranges in your stockings. Your lovers will always know your secret spots.

     For the rest of us, one of two things happened. Either a fine dusting of dandruff and dust drifted out and onto the desk. You recoiled, but understood this is the way of things. Your keyboard, your mess. A wet cloth, and you can continue living your day.

     But some of you have been pushed out of shared work spaces. Some of us are at patron machines. Shared workstations. Multiple hands touching the keys of our 21st century prisons all day long. 

     For all those people, I apologize. You have just seen some shit. Fingernails and small peices of food fell to the desk. Ancient crumbs of humans past spilled forth on the desk like a mosaic of evil tidings. Ghosts of hands past rattled onto the desk and said "Howdy."

     You have three choices, my brethren.

     Pretend you saw nothing. We are all creatures of the devine and shed ourselves. Where others have left, so shall you. Insanity is just what we accept.

     Pry off all the keys and go at it with every cleaner you know. Then spy those keyboards around you, all filled with the same. Your futility is understated here. One down, one to go, and those damn spacebars are a bitch to put back right.

     The rest of us will just say "gross" and order a new keyboard from IT. IT will groan and grumble, but a small sacrifice to get a relatively cheap asset. When the new keyboard arrives, take the old round back and burn it clean with fire.