Keyboard Cleaning

Took a health course earlier in the summer, and I suppose that made me more conscious about a number of things, again.  Temporarily.  Just like going to the dentist and brushing and flossing afterwards with renewed vigor for about a week.  This course ended nearly a month ago, though, but I typed up a reminder on the sticky note to clean the keyboard which remained there for a few weeks.  I only had vague recollections about dirty hotspots I heard about in the house.  Two days ago I went ahead with the task.

A Toshiba KB-2971 specimen.

I've known this keyboard for as long as I can remember; I don't think any other existed before it in my life.  I also don't remember ever seeing it get cleaned, but the early days are a blur.  In 2006 I stayed exclusively with a laptop but moved back to the PC in early 2011, inheriting some stuff from my father.  I ended up using the keyboard for everything I did, except when playing STGs.  Then I'll hop over to this scissor-switch keyboard:

I should eventually remove the rest of the plastic.

The initial cleaning began with the surface.  Mostly dust that mixed together with some stuff and moisture to form noticeable slightly thick gray strands.  There was also the occasional small splatter of a reddish brown substance on the side of a few keys.  I couldn't reach between the keys very well and eventually decided to pull them all out.  I don't think I've ever seen pictures of the insides of dirty keyboards before, and I'm sure there's a lot worse out there than this, but it was a terrifying sight to behold nonetheless.

Chips and chili?  What the–

After viewing it several times the shock value is all but gone.

Since I tend to be self-conscious the second thing I'm going to do is say is that I don't eat chips and dip regularly.  And me, making a careless mess like that?  It couldn't be!  I wouldn't mind having some chips and dip right about now, though.  I think it's been a year or two.  Of course, this doesn't really matter.  Doesn't matter that I weigh 106lb or average one to two meals a day; I still usually eat unhealthy.  Who cares though!  Apparently the only thing that's important to me is leaving the impression that I don't snack a lot anymore.  Skipping whole meals is clearly better.  And not eating out more than a few times a year, but that's another story for later. 

I feel fortunate to be underweight, though.  At least that's one less thing to be depressed over.  And the fear stays with me that since I don't have the will to eat enough the situation could flip around and I won't be able to prevent my overeating.  According to the health book I'm anorexic thanks to this fear (among other things), but hey, I can't really read into self-diagnosis.  Right, so what do we have for cleaning tools?

Not the most adequate.  The Q-tips couldn't travel along the edge very well because of those outcroppings, and I had to withdraw with the wipes plenty of times to keep from accidentally dropping any dirt into the holes.  It would have been nice to do this with the keyboard upside down, or perhaps I could have thought of stuffing something into the holes.  Cleaned each key, cleaned the wire things under some of the keys (and tried not to wipe off too much of the gel thing in there), started on the keyboard surface, took a break, resumed.  Took about two and a half hours not counting the break.  Feels like some rather poor time efficiency.

You can see the plastic protrusions in the upper right catching the light.  That was the first key with a wire going across it that I pulled out (well, levered with the handle of a spoon), and I unfortunately did so in the wrong direction.  Forgive me, keyboard.

I've recently come to realize how much I appreciate this keyboard.  All that sentimental value...I hope I can continue to use it for a while longer.