Has this ever happened to you? I was trying to do a completely unrelated post when the space bar on my laptop refused to budge. Had to constantly stab at it to make it move. I felt like John Belushi in the old SNL Samurai Delicatessen skit: beating up on my computer.

This is not a terribly chic move if you’re sitting in a Barnes & Noble café, trying to blend in with all the cool computer (mostly Mac) users. They were all having ventis. I wanted to venti. So I’m doing it here.

In fairness, what did I expect? Too bad this Dell laptop can’t get frequent flier miles. It’s bounced around from Charlotte to Cape Town, and everywhere in between. Thank you, Barry Manilow. No wonder it’s pooped.

I panicked and started thinking I’d run to the Apple Store and look into a Mac.  Much as I (mostly) admired Steve Jobs’ attitude toward life — especially that commencement speech at Stanford — I still wasn’t convinced Macs are all that great.

Not that I’m a Microsoft fan. Believe me, I’m not. But I’d heard from impartial parties that Macs aren’t immune from viruses and other problems, much as Apple would have you believe. I, too, am seduced by the look (although I’m old enough to remember the Mac of the ’80s, which looked a clunky Fisher-Price toy.)

I resisted the urge and instead got in touch with the Geek Squad at the local big-box store. They said bring the old Dell right in.

They opened up my faithful companion and gave the keyboard a good cleaning. God only knows what they found in there: souvenirs of my gastronomic world tour. Stray basmati rice kernels; bread, cookie and cake crumbs from all over. And that’s only what was poking out from between the keys…

Did the trick, except the letter D is now giving me trouble. Mac, you still might be a contenda.