It was a slow Tuesday morning at the helpdesk when a ticket popped up that immediately caught my eye. The subject line read: “Mouse Not Working—Please Help!” Simple enough, I thought. I braced myself for the usual troubleshooting steps: check batteries, verify connections, or maybe suggest turning it off and on again. Little did I know this ticket would become the highlight of my week.
I dialed the user, a friendly voice answered, clearly frustrated. “My mouse just stopped working out of nowhere! I’ve tried everything, but the cursor won’t move.” I asked if the mouse had any visible damage or loose parts, to which the user replied, “Nope, looks fine.”
“Can you describe what the mouse looks like right now?” I inquired, picturing the standard black or gray device plugged into a computer.
There was a brief silence on the other end of the line, followed by a sheepish laugh. “Well, it’s… not really a mouse.”
Intrigued, I asked for clarification. “Not a mouse? Then what are you using?”
The user hesitated, then admitted, “It’s actually this block of cheese I found in the fridge. I was trying to click on some icons during my lunch break, thought it’d be funny if I pretended to use a ‘cheese mouse.’ Then, when I came back to work, I just kept it on my desk… and I guess I forgot to swap it with the real mouse.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Alright, that would explain why it’s not working. Cheese usually doesn’t have batteries or a scroll wheel.”
She laughed too, then asked if she should try looking for the actual mouse.
“Absolutely,” I said. “Unless we’re planning to invent a new kind of dairy-powered input device.”
She promised to retrieve the real mouse, and the ticket was closed with the note: “User was attempting to use a cheese block as a mouse. Recommended retrieval of the official input device.”
Sometimes, the simplest fix is just reminding people what belongs on their desks—and what belongs in the fridge.