Even though today has already handed me a great quote, there's another interesting story to tell. Of grime.

While visiting an institution today, I was told that two of their computer-mice had stopped working. Why? "They just stopped working", a person told me. I checked the mice and saw they weren't optical, but of the older sort, each containing a ball. When this type of mouse is moved upon a surface, the ball connects with three wheels inside the mouse that together coordinate the mouse-pointer on-screen. In time, the ball picks up stuff from the surface. This stuff sticks to the three wheels.

Said stuff is always nasty. It's a hardened paste consisting of skin flakes, food, various liquids (from every orifice), and just about everything imaginable and not; it is made by the wheels grinding the ingredients against the ball, forming a sort of vile tire.

I opened the first mouse and tilted it upside-down in order to get the ball out. It didn't plop from its plastic cover, as usually is the case. Normally, tilting an opened mouse is all that is necessary to get the ball out, as there are a few millimeters of space between said plastic carcass and the ball. This time, however, things were different.

I looked inside the mouse and discovered the reason to why the ball wouldn't drop: it couldn't. Snugly wrapped around it, were a few millimeters of pure filth. Some of it was pulverised. Some if it was hair. Some of said matter came in different colours and stuck to the grey, pitiful ball.

Having asked for and received a few sheets of toilet-paper, I cleaned the first mouse over a wastebasket. Black, turgid strands of inhuman hair were forcibly twined with some sort of smelly pap, creating the most vile bezoar-like thing I've ever seen inside any piece of computer equipment.

I thought about very small kittens and open air during this ordeal. I'm not joking. Afterwards I cleaned my hands using an alcohol-laden mixture. I washed them again when I got back to work.

Kids, remember: clean your computer equipment. It's good for yourself and for everybody else.