I've been so busy lately...work has taken up far too much of my time, and I've sorely neglected the little things around home. I was leaving while it was still dark, thankful that I wore uniforms as I fumbled around to dress, and not returning until after the darkness once again shrouded me.
After the necessary duties of dinner and a bit of housework, I'd retire to my little computer corner and do my little computer stuff by the glow of the monitor. Content to be able to spend these few precious moments my gaze was transfixed on the 17" of information I retrieved on these limited sessions.
Today is the first day of the rest of my life...I didn't have to go to work till midday. I had forgotten that there is actually a morning light in that 24 hour period called day.
So, after reveling in another near forgotten glory called breakfast, and looking out yon back window and seeing life in the warmth of the sun, I settled in front of my beige friend, glanced down at my keyboard and saw...
....EYES STARING BACK AT ME!
What has grown in my keyboard???? What has been invading the spaces between the keys? Sure, I've grabbed a cookie here and there, some ice cream, a cup of coffee...and it was dark, and I COULD have been a little messy...but there's a community growing in there.
LOOK, between the T and the Y there's a Motel 6 some enterprising young group of organisms has built. The splotch above the #3 resembles a bowling alley. The Z is stuck to the X by something white and sticky...
I don't even want to know.
I sit here awe struck, watching little beings scurrying about erecting tiny little McDonalds with garbled speakers, laying out plans for discount stores with no count service, holding ribbon cuttings for post offices to delay their tiny little mail, electing crooked officials to preside over it all.
The normally little used numeric keypad was unfortunate enough to have had an earlier start and is already home to urban blight. Miniature little condemned signs dot the razed and dilapidated neighborhoods, discarded trash blows unnoticed past the homeless sleeping on the grates near the PgDn key.
Corners of the stickers on the Q P & B keys for playing "You Don't Know Jack" have curled up and blow like tattered flags left out too long in inclement weather. What used to be the TAB key is home to a dried blob of lemon pudding. I'll need a special exception from the historical society prior to removal as it's been there so long.
The fuzzy growth surrounding the PrintScreen key seems to be the offspring of the dust bunny that has raised the back of the entire keyboard up a few inches. I'm sure the F1 and F2 keys thought they'd experienced their first earthquake when that blob of chunky monkey landed between them with a chocolate chip wedged so that it's a wonder I didn't run setup with each boot up.
So, armed with Q-tips and toothpicks and tissues and industrial strength cleaner I'll attempt to rectify this situation. I'd likely be able to remove a month's worth of groceries were I armed with the appropriate retrieval methods, tweezers, eye droppers and baggies.
Suddenly the thought attacks me...how much of what I just typed were my own words and how much was typed by the little race of keyboard people underneath their plastic shacks? Were they my words or those of the little creature who resides in the 'G'? Did my fingers press ever so gently churning out opinions and ideas, or were the keys depressed from below with by an intricate system of pulleys and weights?
A shuddering thought indeed. Suppose each and every word I've written during this 'crummy' time has actually been the doings of the little people living beneath my alphabet?
The thought strikes me, if we are what we eat...are my musings a product of what I've dribbled, and drooled and dropped? Or, have I not had my own singularly fresh ideas?
But, in light of this idea which was becoming less bizarre with each moment, did I actually perhaps by my munchings still contribute a certain amount of journalistic input?
When I spilled wine on the capslock, did it mellow my writings so that I didn't shout quite so often? Did the oatmeal lodged by the period key bind my sentences so that there were fewer ellipsis? The coffee splotch near the arrow keys, did it keep me up to finish each article?
What if I'd eaten devil's food cake, would my writings have leaned towards the horror genre? Had I partaken of 'out of this world' strawberry topped cheesecake each night, would my stories have drifted to sci-fi and space related themes? Beef grilled rare would have shoved me towards the violent and bloody, heaping bowls of Trix cereal would have instilled in me the desire to begin a joke-a-day service. And suppose, just suppose I'd eaten tons of jello with whipped cream, there would have been erotica.
And if I take all these invaders away, if I once again restore my keyboard to it's previously styrofoam packed newness, will I never write again? Will I be reduced to playing Solitaire over and over and over?
Can I take that chance?
Perhaps it's not so dirty afterall, perhaps it now has 'character', just in case I write what I eat, perhaps I'll leave it alone. As if they can read my mind, I hear a collective sigh, and a small cheer rings forth. As the words I've typed roll swiftly past, I do stop a moment to slide the small bit of pecan from between the Scroll Lock and Pause keys. I may be a slob, but I'm not nuts.
This musing brought to you by the letters L & B and the numbers 1, 0, and 5.