DAVENPORT, IA — Found hunched over his desk at the conclusion of the work week, local mechanical keyboard enthusiast Jared Stengler suspects that his newly built keyboard may not be leading to a more productive or fundamentally better version of himself.
“I don’t understand at all,” laments Stengler, staring unblinkingly as a wave of rainbow RGB lighting sweeps across his keyboard while he idly strikes the H key. “I spent three months and way more money than I thought was actually possible on this keyboard. I bought a custom CNC frame and PCB board. I went in on a group buy on Drop for some switches that took four months to arrive that I then spent hours re-lubing myself. Do you even know what any of that means? It looks so long to get this ‘thock’, do you even hear it? Listen!” Stengler then strikes the H key repeatedly with great intensity before sighing deeply.
According to reporters on the scene Stengler then made a sudden move to his phone, pulling up his Instagram feed full of professional photography accounts displaying lavish, conspicuously arranged model offices drenched in neon lighting, commonly known online as “pc setup p*rn”.
“Have you ever heard of Royalty RGB? Totally coordinated, clean, this guy even has a wall-mounted, brushed aluminum rack for all his keyboards! Look at those acoustic panels behind his setup. You know his life is perfect, I can’t even imagine how much stuff he gets done with those six monitors. Why can’t my life be like that?”
His mother, Bernice Stengler having observed the entire construction process and its aftermath as it unfolded in her in-law suite, offered a mixed assessment.
“You know at first it was so lovely, Jarry had that bounce in his step like he was ten years old playing with legos again! When I stepped on one of his little plastic keys the mix of foot pain and Jarry screaming at me to ‘get out mom’ was like being brought back to 2008. He really was my little man again.”
Unfortunately, the process seems to have taken a toll on the entire household.
“Well it’s none of my business but him and his girlfriend have been fighting every day lately,” Said Mrs. Stengler. “He seems a bit down in the dumps ever since he finished his little project. I’m not sure why, it’s very pretty with all the rainbows and the noise it makes is extremely — what’s that word? Pocky? It sounds very pocky.”
Reached while packing her possessions in the Stengler family in-law suite, Stengler’s now ex-girlfriend, Missy Dupont gave a more blunt series of criticisms of the endeavour.
“Eight-hundred and sixty-seven dollars and forty-four cents. That’s how much f****** money he spent on that stupid f****** keyboard. We were saving for an anniversary trip, did he tell you that? Did he tell you he used my credit card to buy four switch testers? I still don’t know what the f*** they are but I know they cost me a hundred bucks. If I ever see him after this, I’m gonna thock him right in his c***. First it was the ‘vintage console modding’, then that ‘audiophile’ BS, and now this? I’m done.”
Though he acknowledges being more depressed than ever after building his keyboard, Stengler was later spotted leaving his local Amazon locker carrying a large box marked as containing a 3D printer.
