Filthy letters

I managed to pour tea on my computer keyboard on Saturday morning. Not just a clumsy splash but a good mugful of hot sugary Sasini-gold. This mishap happened when I sneezed as I went to take a sip, and it ended up costing me 2 hours of my weekend to get it fixed. Suddenly ‘q’ ‘a’ ‘z’ and ‘1’ would not respond to my fingers' touch. . I know you are probably thinking I could have picked up a new keyboard quite cheaply; that was my plan b.

After giving the keyboard a good shake while standing in the patio on the concrete screed amongst the plants of mother-in-law’s tongue, I turned it over to unscrew the 4 screws on the back. Actually there are more screws on the front of the hp keyboard hidden behind 8 letters. And it's in the course of unclipping these letters that I discovered what muck lay beneath them. It's four years of dust, ash from cigarettes, food crumbs, God-knows what else that lay undisturbed, festering and unseen through a torrent of words and thoughts. No cockroaches mind! So I gave the membrane a shake and light wipe before going off to the kitchen sink with the filthy letters and the plastic casing for a good warm-water and washing-up liquid scrub. Half an hour later, I had a sparkling keyboard case and shiny letters sun-bathing on an old Daily Nation outside in the garden.

I did wonder about that filthy keyboard and the similarity with human nature and how beneath a respectable façade may lurk the darkest of thoughts....