Saturday, February 15, 2003

Before you do anything else, I urge you to grasp your keyboard, turn it upside-down, and shake. After doing so, you will find yourself in one of two camps. If you’re in the first camp, then nothing will come out of your keyboard and you will lean back into your chair, smile a smug smile, pat yourself on the back, and ask, “What the Hell did he expect to come out of my keyboard?” On the other hand, if you’re like me and you frequently eat while reading God’s gift to journalism or while buying necessities, then your keyboard will rain goodness-knows-what.

Does the spectacle of granola crumbs, strands of hair (including a long, mysterious strand of BLONDE hair—what the heck?), paprika, and oregano raining down on your desk make you a SLOB? I think not. Most, if not all people who have visited my room—whether in Plex or in Kemper—would describe me as being clean. Sure, my room sometimes falls into disarray, but doesn’t that happen to everybody?

To exonerate myself and perhaps you, gentle reader, I will propose the following resolution. I believe that we can blame these “cleanliness mishaps” on one thing and one thing alone. You’re curious, aren’t you? I can’t say what I’m going to say too loudly because they’d hear, so I’ll tell you in italicized font: ELVES are to blame. I swear that sometimes, my keys simply disappear, along with my wallet and assorted configurations of pocket change. And I also swear that sometimes, it’s almost as if someone put paprika into my keyboard. Heck, I don’t even like paprika. Come to think of it, though, I would like to find out whom that blonde hair belongs to.

“Absent mindedness!” you cry. “Wrong,” I’d say to you, wagging my pointer finger at you for emphasis. “Elves.”