Blast

Water never merely drips from the faucet or the side spray in my kitchen. A closed tap is watertight, flowing over only with potential. This is the benefit of having a landlord who is a retired plumber, and until now, I have appreciated his definitive sink, where the water power has two levels, full blast and off. One of the jokes we liked to play in my childhood home exploited the faucet/side spray relationship. It was possible to lash the side spray’s trigger into the on position with a rubber band or twist tie, making it a mine waiting for the next person to lift the tap.

Today the trigger stuck on its own, and the side spray pointed toward the table and the laptop that is almost never there. I took a towel to the unintentional punch line as well as I could, but almost immediately began to lose some keyboard functions, one-by-one. First the left arrow failed, followed by the up arrow, and then the right. This was bad enough, but since all of the letters and the punctuation still worked, I held out hope that I might finish this story.

Then the delete key failed, and I realized just how non-definitive I am. Undo doesn’t cut it; I need that delete key. Somewhere there might be a savant who sees whole pages in their head and commits them to a word processor like a psychic stenographer. If I knew that person, we would swap computers. Since I didn’t, I would follow a protocol of escalating measures:

1. Rub the surface with a towel. (already done)
2. Pop off the offending key(s) and inspect/swab as needed. (Q-tips required)
3. Run a hair dryer on low power over the offending area.

My next door neighbor lent me an old hairdryer. Maintaining a respectful one inch altitude, I ran it gently over the surface, even lifting some of the keys to give the warm air access. The keys still did not function, and I couldn’t locate any moisture.

Crap. On to more expensive measures.

I called Apple Support while viewing their webpage on the troubled computer - there’s little need for the delete key in web browsing - and explained my dilemma to the non-native English speaker at the call center. Out of warranty means he schedules me for an appointment where I pay whatever they say, plus the gas to get to King of Prussia.

He spotted a late Sunday appointment window, and I jumped on it. My neighbor urged me not to give up on the dryer.

“They’ll just replace the keyboard and tack on a labor fee for just for looking. Let it dry, and it’ll work again, you’ll see.”

I let more hot air play against the keys, and thought back to anecdotes from dinner party mavens - you all know the type. They who insist that their cell phones worked better after total submersion in a YMCA pool, disassembly, being dried by the radiator, and reassembly.

Despite their desire to help, mavens often pass on erroneous information, gleaned second hand or derived through incomplete observation. As a frequent maven myself, I know I diagnose and solve problems by employing only parts of the scientific method, (often out of order) filling in the gaps with the same intuitive leaps that get all of us through the day.

Meanwhile, the time of the appointment was fast approaching. I suspected and feared that skipping it and trusting the hair dryer to evaporate my problems would lead to me calling support again to beg for a new appointment, granted only with a penalty. How much was the prospect of two or more weeks without a delete key worth to me?

-The hot air blasted past me as I raced south on 422 toward King of Prussia.