There’s a little red spider living in my keyboard.
Hang on a sec, I’ll see if I can get him. tydjm789dtghm xdfgnawer
Nope. Missed. He’s too fast. And there are too many places for him to hide. And lots of parasites to feed on. That’s the problem with Mac keyboards – they’re white, which looks great when they’re new, but makes it easy to see all the inevitable grime, crumbs, pencil lead, paper clips, hair, coffee stains, fried chicken (I kid you not) and that “gunk” of mysterious origin.
There he is – dfhbdnd3756
Nope. Missed again.
This guy’s hard to kill. He pops up, taunts me, declares a jihad on my corpulent, decadent Western fingers and disappears.
I think I’ll call him Osama bin Spider. There he is again, on the number pad! 32. -+. 0.2659999999999
Missed again. This spider is good. But tragedy – there was collateral damage this time. The number 9 was killed in the decisive air strike by my fingers. I will go on television and issue a carefully-worded apology to the rest of the residents of the number pad province. My fingers will be more compassionate and endeavour to win the hearts and minds of the rest of the keyboard keys, in the hopes that they will surrender Osama bin Spider to justice.
Meanwhile, we will rebuild. I have plucked another number 9 from a keyboard in the backroom technology graveyard. It’s as good as new, at least until the next airstrike.
Maybe it’s time to try another tactic. I just noticed something disturbing. All my pounding on the keyboard has disturbed Osama bin Spider’s eggs, which now appear to be hatching. Tiny little red spiders are crawling around – gross! I think I’ll call them the Spiderban. Or the Talib-nids. I can’t just get rid of them – the more I type, the more come out. The harder I type, the faster they move. This is terrible!
Time for a massive counter-insurgency offensive. Here it comes, you disgusting Talib-nids!
wsz’’;kjuy vgfrvbgthyki,l op.; .,mnbv 567p; 15688610,hjgfxm c5g41n6gf486dn4fgn
That kind of worked, but now they’re all holed up under the F-keys. I’m afraid to hit those because I might launch all sorts of applications at once and crash my computer. Maybe I’ll just leave them alone for now. But I can’t back off, because then they’ll take over my entire keyboard and cover all the vowels and consonants in a web of injustice.
I think I know how American General Stanley McChrystal feels. Now, how did he get out of running the war in Afghanistan? Oh yeah. Bad-mouth the president in a magazine no one takes too seriously, apologize and resign. It’s foolproof.
Here goes. APPLE SUCKS!
Can I get assigned to a different keyboard now?
Hmmm, didn’t work. Maybe I’ll just have to get up off my butt and go get the canned air to gently blow the junk out. No destruction required.
And maybe it’ll get that fried chicken out from under the space bar, too.
Originally published in the Campbell River Mirror, June 25, 2010
