By now, some of you have probably seen the photos of how dirty my Model M keyboard got before I cleaned it. That keyboard hadn’t been cleaned at least since I acquired it in 1996, and I can’t be sure that its previous owner had cleaned it since its date of manufacture in 1989. Of course, the keyboard really never left my desk, so it wasn’t that bad of a dirt magnet.
Enter my laptop. Going on three years old this July, it’s been everywhere from hospitals to restaurants to train stations – it quite literally provokes a, “Do you know where that’s been?” sort of reaction. Its overall dirtiness factor wasn’t helped in the least by the removed sticker residue. Since all of its bumper stickers have been removed since roughly January, I decided I’d clean off the lid.
I initially figured some of the grime would come off with plain water (on the right). That didn’t help, so I switched to isopropyl alcohol. Still not satisfied, I ended up having to use acetone to get most of it off, the effects of which you can see on the left. Disturbing? You bet.