I’m Your Computer Keyboard And I’m Begging You, Please Stop Eating Over Me

Stop right there!

I hear you opening yet another bag of cool ranch Doritos, and before you do, I have something to say.

I need you to stop eating over me.

Look, I get it. The last year and a half has been stressful on so many levels: COVID has ravaged the population, the planet is becoming more uninhabitable every day, and there was literally an attempted coup on our country’s government. But that should inspire you to exercise the little control you have in this crazy world and take care of the things you have, not turn them into dinner plates or napkins.

Every day for me is an avalanche of crumbs. One day it’s a Klondike Oreo ice cream sandwich sandwich, the next day it’s Doritos, and then the day after that it’s one rolled piece of bread with peanut butter unevenly smeared across it (which isn’t a sandwich, despite what you tell yourself). You don’t think about it much because after every meal, you get up and walk away, but I’m still here. And every day, the pile you create gets bigger, and the rubble falling through the cracks of the keyboard covers me more and more. I’m starting to drown in crumbs over here!

To put it bluntly, you’re the worst eater I’ve ever seen. You’ve spilled every variety of sauce on me at one point (and on your shirt, which you haven’t changed in quite some time). Many a bite of sandwich or a loose fry has landed on me when its trajectory was meant for your mouth. It’s clearly one of the reasons you can’t get a date — from your bright orange keystrokes I can identify that you spend a truly tragic amount of time on OKCupid. If you do ever bring a date over (and that’s a big if), they’re going to be horrified at the state of me. Of us! Wouldn’t it be super romantic to sit down, just the two of us, and blast some compressed air right into me? I’m turned on just thinking about it!

If we can’t fix your messy eating, then we’re going to need to amp up your cleaning habits because as of right now, you’re not doing much for me. Your idea of “cleaning” is turning me over, rapidly shaking me, and wiping whatever debris came out onto the floor and straight into the rug. No getting in there with a toothbrush or a paperclip, no taking my keys out and scrubbing underneath, no digging into my cracks and crevices to find a kernel of popcorn you lost under there eight months ago. I thought for sure the sound of numerous crumbs being crushed with every depression of the space bar would spur you to give me a deeper cleaning, but alas, it did not.

For someone who can make or break your day, you sure don’t treat me very well. I think it’s about time you start.

Yeah, I’m going there. I’m threatening you a little bit. Your whole life revolves around me. One stuck key, and that important work email now reads “thots” instead of “thoughts”. One wrong stroke, guess what? You’re locked out of your building’s online portal — and you’re already late on paying rent. Your next innocent Google search? I just put you on an FBI watchlist. Once I unleashed my full wrath upon you, there is no Escape. Or Enter, or Delete for that matter.

I’m tired of being neglected, taken for granted, brushed aside. Actually, if you brushed anything aside ever, I wouldn’t be so upset! I’ve been talking with the other keyboards in the neighborhood, and I know now that it doesn’t have to be this way. They have responsible, caring owners that do use compressed air all over them, just get right in there and blow those bad crumbs away. I can’t even get you to use a Clorox wipe on my keys! You show a blatant disregard for your health and my own (seriously, enough with the Doritos, they’re just oil-filled air), and if you refuse to change your ways, then maybe I need to make you.

To make it easy for you, I’ve typed in a google search for “tables,” “plates,” and “napkins” that you should consider getting. Those are all better places to eat your food. Order them so that I can go back to simply being a vessel for ignored OKCupid messages and ordering crap you don’t need off of Amazon.