Catastrophe at Negative Nine Feet

Oops! Might as well call me a Y2K version of Brittany Spears! Because I did it again. Saturday night, I toppled my double-cupped 44 oz Diet Coke on the desk in my dark basement lair. You know I add powdered sugar-free cherry limeade to my magical elixir, right? So anything that spills out is cola-red in color.

I almost caught it in time. I'd just added some extra ice cubes from my bubba cup. Hit my over-half-full beverage with the back of my wrist. I snatched it up, but not before about 1/4 of the contents had splashed out onto my countertop and keyboard. That's right,

KEYBOARD!!!

Let the record show that Genius built my New Delly for me. The only thing Dell about it is, I think, the monitor. The tower has stickers for Cooler Master and intel inside CORE i3. The keyboard itself says Rosewill. Poor keyboard. I was afraid it might as well have written its will, and I'd be laying roses on it, bemoaning its passing. But that keyboard is surprisingly DietCokeProof.

Uh huh. I blotted up as much elixir as I could, dabbing with paper towels and Puffs With Lotion. I flipped it over and slapped its back, like you do for a choking infant. Right, Genius? My little orange-slice-sucker at the hands of Grandma?

Anyhoo...I was really worried there for a minute. When I tried to type in Google at the top of my screen, I got 333333333333.

So I tried again. And got ho.w

The next attempt yielded ...................

Then hho.w

BUT THEN IT STARTED WORKING RIGHT!

Thank the Gummi Mary, my keyboard was not a lush! Barely even thirsty. I must have gotten most of the moisture out. Which was kind of hard to tell, seeing as how my Rosewill keyboard has a red base under the keys.

Please pardon all the dust and gunk stuck between the keys. I have been remiss in polishing my tools. When I worked at the unemployment office, I always took my keyboard apart for cleaning. Not on company time, of course. I stayed late waiting on Farmer H to finish his shift and pick me up, since we drove to the city together back then. I was off the clock, whiling away a half hour, hoping that strange man wasn't going from window to window and peeping in at me again.

Yes, I would pop all the keys off (one at a time, so I made sure they went back in the right place!) and polish them with a baby-wipe before replacing. And that was even (state) government property!

I really need to unhook Rosewill and give him a good scrub. I don't know much about electronics, but I'm pretty sure that once I get my music playing, unplugging the keyboard won't affect it...