As is appropriate during this Halloween season, I had a very scary gaming-related experience lately. For the past couple weeks, it has become clear that I have passed a milestone that serves as a marker of my l33t-ness: I’ve nearly worn out the left button on my mouse.
Yes, it seems that those hours of killing demons and aliens have finally taken its toll and resulted in a truly unfortunate casualty (and I say this, without any amount of casualty either). My mouse had apparently died.
I know, I know, “it is just a mouse!” –But it is my mouse. It is an Intellimouse Explorer 3.0. A silver one. Not those lame black monochrome ones that Microsoft is trying to sell now.
After a couple weeks of hoping against hope I could get used to the half broken-ness of the left mouse button, with its seemingly random double clicking, today it got unbearable. I dug out another crappy mouse I had laying around and plugged it in (it was still an optical mouse, and not a ball mouse, though, After all, there are only so many indignities one person can take!)
As I began to wrap the cord around the body of the mouse in some sort of burial shroud, I thought, “I wonder if I can take it apart?” (I mean, come on, it was either that or catch up on my grading!) So I took off the rubbery feet and unscrewed it, unsure of what I would find. Once I had done so, I noticed that the little switches that were under the buttons were all the same, but only in different positions.
My heart skipping, my hands trembling, I pried off the one under the left button, then the one under the right and then I switched them. I put the cover back on, replaced the screws, plugged the mouse back in and hoped that my deadly addiction to dealing death to demons and delinquents would not have claimed yet another innocent victim.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to say that the operation was a success! I don’t have to buy another mouse any time soon! My mouse lives again!!!
Don’t make the same mistake I did. Let my story be a lesson to you all: Do not take your mouse for granted!