Sand in My Laptop, Bird Poo on My Touchpad (to the tune of “Tears on my Pillow”)

I had a moment of insight the other day; a sudden “light bulb flashing on, ding-ding” moment. It occurred to me that the beauty of a laptop is that, well, it’s small, closeable, and thus exceedingly portable. It doesn’t have to be welded to one’s desk at home, gathering dust around its hinges. A laptop can go out for walks, it can enjoy the sunshine, breathe fresh air. Indeed, as its name suggests, it can sit on it’s owners lap – perhaps on a sun chair, a swing seat on a porch, on the backseat of a Mercedes convertible.

Of course, none of these seating options are available to me in the middle of crammed and rambunctious Manhattan. However, amid my light bulb moment, it did occur to me that perhaps my laptop would like to come on a trip to the playground!

It seemed such a good idea at the time. After all, we’d just become the proud owners of a key to a private playground owned by NYU (where my partner works). This playground, affectionately known as the “key park,” has delightful amounts of shade, lots of benches, a non-rat-infested sandpit, and more toy diggers than a Bob the Builder Fan Club would know what to do with. Not only that, the park has a heavy gate which even the nimblest of little Houdini fingers would not be able to open and thus there’s no danger of little ‘uns running out to play in the New York traffic. In short, it is an idyllic spot where kids can roam free and parents can kick back, lounge on the shady benches, make calls on their cell, or…yes, maybe even, get out their laptops and squeeze in a little extra writing time.

Or so I thought.

Everything went so well at first. When we reached the park, Benny ran immediately to the sandpit and found his favorite back-loader (a digger, for those of you not familiar) to play with. Meanwhile, I pulled out my computer and smiled to myself as it made the familiar booting-up sing-song chimes. As the sun shone, I typed away, only looking up now and again to check on Benny and make sure he wasn’t in some sort of “mine, no mine!!” altercation with another child.

Five hundred words later – yes, five hundred words! – there was a yelp from the sandpit which I instantly knew to be Benny’s. I looked up to see my much-taller-than-your-average-three-year-old Benny in a face off with a grinning and no-bigger-than-Benny’s-knee-one-year-old. It looked like the little whipper-snapper had snapped up the back loader and now Benny’s face had turned five shades of red and tears were popping from his eyes like a cartoon character.

This is where I discovered the first problem of taking a laptop to a playground. You can’t just throw down an 800 dollar piece of hardware like you would a book, magazine, or scarf you might be knitting. After saving your sweated-over document, you must place set the laptop down cautiously, being sure it isn’t placed in a puddle of juice or on top of some half-chewed bagel. And, of course, all this care and precision takes time.

So while I fiffed and faffed with my laptop, Benny’s wails were so loud they were making the windows in neighboring buildings shudder. Luckily, the mother of the other child had stepped in and as I finally and breathlessly reached the scene, she was already doling out the familiar mommy mantra to her son - “Don’t snatch, must share, you’ll get your turn.” Within seconds, the other child found a more interesting toy to play with, the back loader was back in Benny’s hands, and Benny’s sobs had ebbed to the occasional snot-laced sniff.

After thanking the other mommy, I snuck back to the bench and to my carefully perched laptop and resumed writing again. However, the back loader ruckus must have unsettled Benny because just a few minutes later he was at my side demanding my attention.
“Thomas on the ‘puter?” he asked a couple of times.
When I politely told him “no” he couldn’t look at the Thomas the Tank website and suggested he go back to the sandpit, he jabbed at the screen and repeated, “Thomas on the ‘puter.”

Ordinarily, this kind of jabbing at my laptop would make me just mildly annoyed. However, when I caught a glimpse of his sand covered pinkies, I exploded.
“No, Benny,” I wailed, “You’ll get sand…”
But it was already too late. Little grains of sand were already twinkling on my keypad – mostly around the A, S, W, Q area. I quickly upturned the laptop and began to shake. As I did so, I hoped, sweated, and prayed that my computer wouldn’t come to the same sticky end that an old camera of mine came to after I dropped on the beach one time.

Fortunately, when I flipped the laptop back over and prodded at the keys, all seemed to be working fine. Not only that, Benny had clearly got bored of my laptop shenanigans and was headed back into the playground. So, once again, I began tapping away.

This time I only got a few words written when I heard a weird splatting noise very nearby. At first, I thought it might be a first splash of rain and sighed at the thought of having to clear up, chase after Benny, and leave the park. However, the sky, when I looked up, was crystal blue with just a few tiny fluffy clouds dancing above the rooftops.

Then, scanning the bench next to me, to see where the splatting noise had come from, I noticed a sticky white and grey mess only inches away. Bird poo, of course. Big wet bird poo! I looked up again and in the tree above me – the same tree which was giving me all that lovely shade – sat three straggly city birds, their beady eyes looking down at me. I swear to god, they were giggling.

That was the last straw. There was no way I could risk bird poo on my touchpad. I snapped the laptop shut and, as I shuffled it back in its case, I muttered, “No more fieldtrips for you!”