somebody stole my keys

2024-04-07

I’m a kid in a classroom trying to finish some project on the computer, when I realize that I can’t complete it because somebody has stolen two rows of keys and switches from my personal custom keyboard that I carry around with me everywhere.

I start to cry because that’s so mean! Who would steal keys from somebody’s personal keyboard. I have been targeted! I am a victim! Somebody is bullying me!

The teacher is busy and distracted, but she finds another keyboard in the closet and asks me to repurpose some of the keys from it to fix my keyboard. But I can’t, because this keyboard is hecking weird and I don’t understand how the switches work. Each key is a free floating small plastic lever on the edge of the keyboard. Visually, it looks kind of like a weird small plastic piano keyboard. And each key corresponds to a minimum of two different letters depending on whether you press it up or press it down.

I tell the teacher I can’t use this and continue to cry and moan.

She finds me another keyboard that has keys and switches I can actually use. I start taking it apart. But when I go to put the switches on my keyboard, I discover that the missing keys and switches have actually been there this whole time, they were just in the wrong places! Did I do this? Is this whole situation, all these tears and all this anguish, is it all my fault for not putting my keyboard together correctly in the first place?

I sheepishly rearrange my own keys and my keyboard now works fine.