Suck It Up

I needed some canned compressed air the other day, to blow the dust out of a laptop fan. My can in the workshop was exhausted, so I headed over to the local hardware store to get another one.

I couldn’t find any on the shelf in the electronics section so I flagged down a store clerk. She couldn’t find it either. We went to Customer Service and had the following conversation:

“Sorry, sir. It appears we don’t have any.”

“But you do sell it, don’t you? I remember getting a can here not too long ago.”

“Yes we do – but our last two cans were shoplifted. Apparently you can inhale the stuff and get high. Who knew…?”

So it was off to the neighboring town and Staples. Surely they would have some canned air. But I couldn’t find it anywhere. Another staff member took me to an obscure lower shelf in the computer section and got a big locked plastic box off the shelf. You know, the kind of box Staples uses to lock up expensive hard drives and video cards.

As she’s struggling to open the box and take out a couple of cans, I told her what I had heard about this canned air stuff.

“Yes, that’s why we have it under security packaging now. In one of our Toronto stores, they found a young lady passed out in the bathroom with a couple of empty cans of Dust Destroyer. We aren’t anxious for that to happen in Carleton Place.”

So I came home, blew the dust out of my laptop and put the cans safely away in the workshop. But I can’t help thinking:

“It’s a strange strange world we live in, Master Jack.”

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