How NOT to clean your keyboard

NOTE: I composed this a few weeks ago, and was only able to upload the photos just now. Still, it should not take away from your enjoyment of my little story. :)

One Monday night, a few weeks back, I had a fabulous blog post planned, and I was all ready to go post it, when I came into the office with my dinner and dropped a hot bowl of freshly microwaved potato all over the keyboard. I did not have one of those fancy-shmancy spill-resistant keyboards, so the potato spilled all throughout the cracks and crevices.

Now, I had heard a story on NPR, years ago, about how one could put the keyboard in the dishwasher for cleaning. I didn't think this would be feasible, though, so I decided to clean it by hand.

I knew I had to clean it out before any further complications arose, so I unplugged it, brought it into the kitchen, turned on the faucet and used the spray hose. I took great pains not to get the plug wet.

Then I turned the keyboard over on the drainboard to let it dry.

But I got impatient. I wanted to use my keyboard, and I wanted to use it now!!!

So here's what I did: I took the keyboard into the bathroom, and plucked off each key, one by one by one.

I carefully arranged the keys on the vanity so I would know where to place them when it came to re-assembling the keyboard:

Oh yeah, and I also put the keys in a sink full of soapy water to clean them as well.

Once all the keys were off, I used Q-Tips to get rid of all of the dirt that was in every crack and crevice of the keyboard. And there was a lot more than just potato in there. There was a surprising amount of cat hair in there, too.

(See the dirty water right below the number keys? That's how dirty it was in there!)

When I got all the crap out, I used more Q-Tips to get rid of the excess water. I then took the keyboard, flipped it over on the drainboard, and let it dry for half an hour.

But I turned into Veruca Salt again: "Daddy, I want to use my keyboard NOW!!!"

I got my keyboard from the kitchen and took out my blow dryer. I aimed the hot air at the still-wet piece of equipment. This task was made more difficult for two reasons:

1. The blow dryer blew some of the keys off of the vanity and onto the floor, which led to:

2. Gabby playing with the keys as they fell to the ground.

I had to re-arrange the order of the keys at least five or six times. I trusted that my memory worked. If not, I could always go online to find a diagram.

Once I was confident that the keyboard was completely dry, I painstakingly re-assembled all the keys. Then I went back to my office and turned on the computer. I plugged 'er in, opened Microsoft Word, and tested 'er out.

There were about quite a few keys that didn't work. The enter key was stuck, as well as the c,v,b,n, and m keys. And then the beeping started...beep, beep, beep. It wouldn't stop.

It was time for a new keyboard.

Fortunately keyboards aren't that expensive. I picked one up at Staples for $15. I have finally gotten used to this new one, but I miss the clicking sounds that my old keyboard had.

Besides, this new one has a new, important feature:

Spill resistance.