We now interrupt your regularly scheduled taco Tuesday for this important story time. Gather round...quickly, quickly!

Late 1989 I was a senior in high school. My main mentor in those days was Mr. Davis. He was a chemistry teacher, ran our planetarium, was a volleyball coach...

...and was in the Navy Reserves as a helicopter pilot attached to the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. Very cool dude. He was the only person I knew who had one of these babies...an early Apple Macintosh computer. It was gorgeous and fast and REALLY expensive.

I loved that little guy. I used to sneak out of his chemistry class and into his office so I could play Flight Simulator on it (don’t worry, I still got an A in chemistry!). I used to hang out during breaks and lunch, too. Mr. Davis was a saint to let us get away with all that...

In our high school students had no access to vending machines, but the teachers lounge had one. Mr. Davis would buy me and a couple friends sodas in there and we’d eat lunch in his office and hang out. But one day the unthinkable happened...I spilled a LOT of Mountain Dew...

...all into the keyboard. I mean a LOT. BUT I HAD A PLAN! After apologizing profusely I told him I could fix it. He let me take it home and I used hot water and some mild detergent to rinse it out really good and then used compressed air to blow it good and dry. I had done...

...this often with electronics of the era in my Dad’s shop and felt pretty good about it working. I threw it in a shoe box and put it with my school things to take back the next day. Next morning I get in my car and hit my usual convenience store for “breakfast”, a pack of...

...doughnuts and a, you guessed it, Mountain Dew (blame my Dad for this addiction). A 16oz bottle. I ate the doughnuts and drank some of the soda on the drive in. We weren’t even allowed to HAVE soda in our school, but we regularly snuck them around, and I wanted to finish my...

...soda, so as I got out of the car, I threw the bottle in that shoe box with the keyboard. Yes, I did that. I mean those bottles have caps. You know where this is going, don’t you? That’s right, somehow I didn’t get the cap on very good. And I headed right for Mr. Davis’s...

...office to present him with his freshly cleaned keyboard. I opened the box and grabbed it and pulled it out as Mountain Dew STREAMED from every orifice. He looked at me with a brief almost smile before realizing that I was NOT pulling a prank and yes, I had indeed soaked his...

...keyboard a SECOND time in as many days. I apologized again, he went without his computer for ANOTHER day, and I did the same cleaning that day after school, too. I made SURE it came NOWHERE NEAR another source of Mountain Dew on the next trip in and we plugged it in and...

...it did indeed work just fine. I’m thankful for wonderful school teachers who put up with things like that. I had more than my fair share of wonderful people then who probably should have murdered me, but instead tolerated and encouraged me. Thank you, Mr. Davis.