2007
something never ever to tell a neat freak
maura @ 6:18 pm
Did you know that you can gently pry up each key on your white and clear iMac keyboard and use a q-tip to clean out all of the accumulated gunk down there? You didn’t?? Well, now you do!! If you’re like me, the acquisition of this knowledge will temporarily paralyze you, enabling you to do NOTHING else until you’ve pried up a few* keys and cleaned ’em out. Here’s an OCD tip for ya: the space bar is the gunkiest. And another tip: don’t forget which keys go where!
* Okay, more than a few. But less than all, honest!
You may well be asking yourself, I wonder what events precipitated this cleaning frenzy? And so I will tell you.
The other night I was meditating in the living room when I heard a clinking-glass-thunking-something-dropping noise. When I finished with the counting breaths thing I went into the study only to learn that a full glass of wine had spilled on Jonathan’s keyboard. Aiieee!
Luckily he has another keyboard, of course. But he decided to see if he could save the winey one. First he ran water through it for a good 15 minutes to rinse the wine out. Since Mac keyboards have a clear back you could see all the wine in there getting pushed out by the water, which was kind of cool.
He left it overnight to dry, but of course it wasn’t dry in the morning. So he did what anyone would do: wrapped it in a towel and popped it in the oven! Kids, don’t try this at home. He baked it at 170 degrees fahrenheit on and off for two days, til the last of the moisture was gone. Mmm, crunchy!
After the bakin’ was done his space bar was acting wonky, so he pried up my space bar to do a little testing. And that’s when he found the gunk, and shared it with me. A whole new opportunity for spring cleaning!
8 comments on “something never ever to tell a neat freak”
How’s the i key? :)
I’m impressed that you were able to telekinetically spill the wine from the other room, using only your mental powers!
The cleaning tip is helpful too. I got the black one even though someone told me it showed more fingerprints.
Har, I am so psychic! Yeah, I didn’t have a choice with my keyboard (it’s ooooold, almost as old as Gus!) but I’d’ve picked black. The white keys get a little grungy too. In my weak moments I want to pop them all off and scrub them in a tub of soapy water. But I have work to do!
Yooooooou are so fuuuuuuuuuunny, I forgot to laugh!
The black ones *do* pick up more fingerprints. Plus, the power supplies don’t match, which is just wrong.
OK, I admit that black does pick up fingerprints! And you even finally have that in writing! But I don’t know about “more” than the white because I am constantly reading the paper and I have sticky children (not that they usually go anywhere near it…). And I bet, though I would not try this, that black is less prone to red wine stains.
I dunno, even the metal ones have their issues. Our old titanium laptop is sort of flaking off a bit where you put your hands while you type. Plus it gets so danged hot, you could fry an egg on it!
Sound advice for us all: let’s keep the wine away from the computers!
EDITED TO ADD that the laptop is aluminum, not titanium, because titanium was too flexible. Correction courtesy of my favorite tech person!
and the keyboard was fine! (mostly fine; F12 is sticky and I had to do a wee bit of surgery on the somewhat warped spacebar, but fine enough demmit) I using it riiiiiiiiiight now.