Read This Before You Lick Your Keyboard

Fun quiz here, people: one of the most germ-ridden areas of your house is:

The toilet
Your butthole
The TV remote
Your keyboard

You backspace A LOT

If you answered A or C, you’re close. If you answered B, you didn’t read the question, unless you happen to live up your own ass. I understand this happens to some people from the neck up, but I digress.

Check your status before trolling

The internet reports (valid source, just ask Facebook) that the average computer keyboard harbors between three and five times the number of germs found on the average toilet seat. The five most common microbes found here are:

Staphylococcus
Ebola
Cootiform HIV
Bow-staphylococcus
Zombie viruses

The HIV is the fabulous-looking one

I’m not sure why we’re being bigoted and only focusing on the ‘average’ keyboards and toilet seats, but we’ll overlook that. The cause for this is apparently linked to the fact that people clean their toilets more than their keyboards, and toilet seats are often smooth and non-porous. Keyboards have more nooks and crannies than an English muffin, and some models have more than a French muffin (which are overly-complex, require truffles, and snooty).

Sure… the toner exploded… right

“But what about the non-porous aspect?” you’re probably asking right now. True fact: keyboards are generally non-porous and as such don’t suck up fluids well. However, your tax dollars have been spent to show that the average keyboard is full of food bits, skin flakes, and… other moist substances. The study pointed out that mucus led the pack, but I’m guessing that people who leave the mouse on the wrong side of the keyboard by accident are part of the problem too, if you know what I mean. Browser histories were not part of the study.

Don’t act like you have no idea what we’re talking about

Either way, it’s the moisture that will get you. All those creepy little biological bastards will reproduce all over the place and leap onto your hands while you type. Consider that while you ram that donut or burrito into your mouth while you finish the TPS reports for your boss.

Time to move out of mom’s basement

So what do you do if you’re the average cube monkey who bangs out worthless memoranda and administrivia for your wage-tyrant boss? The recommended solution is canned air and swabbing with alcohol. Because we’re really civic-minded here at Long Awkward Pause, we’d go one step further: burn that keyboard with fire while you drink alcohol.