#284 My Dust

The other day I was rooting around the office and I chanced to spy an odd bit of technology. I was briefly overcome with a spasm of nausea as I was painfully reminded of the time I sunk my entire life fortune into Smith Corona stock. It was a typewriter. We keep one around because it’s still handy from time to time to type an address on an odd-shaped envelope. But what struck me the most about this piece of low-tech gear was what was on top of it, a dust cover. When was the last time you saw on of those? Pretty interesting. Seems there was a time in the fifties or sixties when there must have been a lot of dust in the world, or perhaps our society was obsessed with it, because I remember everything having dust covers. My aunt’s house had them on all kinds of stuff. Nana, as we called her, had plastic covers on the living room “good” furniture. A plastic runner down the middle of the wall-to-wall carpet. I remember what a big deal that was too. She had wall-to-wall carpet and not just braided rugs on her hardwood floor. Nana had dust covers on her lampshades and doilies under her lamps. Heck, even the salt and pepper shakers had little tailor-made dust covers. And the Tabasco bottle had a hand-crocheted serape and sombrero. Not appetizing, let me tell you, pouring red runny liquid out of what was presumed to be Mr. Tabasco’s head. But you know, when I think back on it, almost everything that was being protected form the ravages of dust was non-electronic. Oh sure, you could say an electric typewriter was kind of electronic but really, most of the moving parts are just plain mechanical. And it would take dust specks the size of dirt clods to jam the works.
So I was reading about the next wave in computer processing. How they’ve now figured out how to etch semiconductors or whatever down to nano-widths and how the biggest impediment to downsizing further is that the etches are so close together the least little micro-mote wafting through the air can jump the circuit. Like a wet shirtsleeve across my car battery poles. So I’m wondering. Why is it when we could finally use a pretty efficient dustcover that they’re no longer around. I mean, even with something as relatively simple as my keyboard. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have a cover to leave over it when I’m not at my desk? At least to keep the rat excrement off from when the mice are eating the Ritz Bitz crumbs that fell out of my websurfing kids’ mouths. Judging by the occasional dust bunnies I see skittering across the hardwood floor and catching on the braided rug, I’d say dust is far from a distant memory. So, given the sensitivity of my computer how about we revive that old silent witness of hygiene paranoia. Now that atoms really are our friends we could make a teeny tiny dustcover and do some nano-protecting. Nana would be proud.
America, ya gotta love it.