When people bring in their computers to be serviced, they come in various stages of filth. The computers, that is, not the people. Well, I imagine the people do, too, but the salesmen have to deal with them up front; they seldom come back here to the techie section. People don’t understand just how sensitive computers are to dirt and dust. It clogs the innards of the computer and leads to overheating and short circuits. Cat hair and cigarette smoke are especially hard on them. Moreover, most people put their computers on the floor next to their desk, where dust and cat hair settles. By all means, put your computer on top of your desk next to your monitor! And don’t smoke around them. In the long run, you’ll save yourself major stress.

Well, I bring this up because a customer brought in an especially dirty machine today. It looked like someone had spilled Coke all over it. The head of the service department was cleaning it with Windex and complaining about it the whole time. Then he took the cover of the computer off. Inside was – I am not making this up, exaggerating, or in any way using hyperbole for emphasis – inside was a HUGE PILE OF DEAD ROACHES AND ROACH DROPPINGS. Additionally, a few of the roaches were STILL ALIVE. And CRAWLING AROUND. Inside the COMPUTER. Yep, I think I figured out your computer problem there, buck-o. My diagnosis is, “roaches.” That’ll be $70, please. No, sorry, you’ll have to call Orkin if you want your problem fixed.

The “Coke” that we thought was spilled on the outside of the case turned out to be roach droppings as well. I can only shudder in horror as I think of the environment this poor guy must be living in. I mean, if I got a bit of money, I think I’d use it to hire some exterminators or something, maybe move to a better apartment in a nicer neighborhood, before I bought a computer. That’s just me, though. Other people have other priorities. Apparently.

You find some weird things inside computers sometimes. Once someone (a child?) had mistaken a computer for a piggy bank and had stuck a bunch of spare change through one of the cracks. Needless to say, this quickly caused a short. On the list of unusual things I’d like to find inside a computer, though, money is near the top of the list, while DEAD ROACHES would rank pretty close to the bottom. There might be some things worse to find inside, but frankly, I’d rather not exercise my imagination in that direction. As I’ve mentioned before, I used to work as a garbage collector, and I’ve seen and worked with some pretty disgusting things in my time, so I have a pretty high “gross-out” threshold. This computer, though, exceeded even my limit.

Our boss came to the back and looked at the computer. He said, in his thick Chinese accent, “It make me be itching!” I think that just about sums it up.