Monday, February 23, 2009

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....

3 comments:

  1. very interesting view to take, and unfortunatly probably accurate. X

    ReplyDelete
  2. Spyke,

    Sometimes a reflection of our lives can be found in the most mundane of things/activities.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i hope one day to see things the way you do, i however still have far to go before i have sinsight like yours.

    Spyke X

    ReplyDelete

Hey you, leave a comment but don't just be an asshole about it - try to be decent. That said you are welcome to heap abuse or ridicule if it makes you feel better. However in order to get published it must not be homophobic, racist or sexist. OK?