Mice and men, the story goes,
Are ever always ever foes.
But I have a story I've told before.
A story! A mighty and magical lore!
Mostly skipping the parts when the world-wind blew,
When hackers were hacking and hackers were few,
Mostly skipping the parts when the world ran on floppies,
When Steve went to Xerox and made a few copies,
We'll pick up the story after its core —
After the window, the GUI, the great metaphor
That made machines kind and using them nice:
This is a story of men and their mice.
My dad's always loved Apple. He likes to be free.
When he was done, he dropped them near to the tree.
(My first door to the world was an iPhone 3GS
It was too much, but I'd never settle for less.)
We had tech strewn about, I inherit this tendency,
As I grew, I acceded to total dependency:
Oh clever contraptions, oh beautiful things!
Of needless technology, I was the prince!
For needed no longer, appeasing the spouse,
A gift was given to me: we begin with the Apple Mighty Mouse.
An ovaly thing, plastic and wired,
Tiny-ball-topped, of which I soon tired.
I recall playing Minecraft, and deep in a cave,
Unable to switch to my weapon. (The cave was a grave!)
Then the Mighty Mouse 2, the same as the 1,
But eschewing the wire and weighing a ton.
The Duracells wouldn't remain in their guard,
So I folded and smushed in a new index card
Which I had because school swore they were needed.
"I guess I did need it," I begrudgingly ceded.
And then there was the era of Magic.
This is a timeless and glorious classic.
The first Magic Mouse had the same battery issue
For the AA version, the notecard forever in situ,
But the Magic Mouse 2, of umbilical infamy,
That is the one that I praise most profusely!
The charging, of course, is a facile distraction
(Can't we bear, once a month, but an hour of inaction?)
At ninety-nine grams, I'll admit that it's heavy,
But this is a feature; it's solid and steady,
And gives it a feeling of impeccable quality.
Its symmetry, some say, is a confusing topology,
Apparently taking the tail for the bill,
But this, I reply, is an Issue of Skill.
There are some points of valid critique,
Two I would count, though I would still seek
To explain these as tradeoffs, not mere mistakes,
As testaments to the toll that dedication must take.
First before the jury — a problem for l33ts —
You can't scroll by the click, you can't be discrete.
O! You would verily weep, your soul would be gored,
If you knew of the diamonds I've dropped in my lurch to the sword!
Or in my beloved Factorio, my bane and my sweet,
In which, like my job, annoyance accretes,
And the finger soon wails of the toothless deficiency
Of only cautiously scrolling to ruthless efficiency.
But still for its purpose, smooth scrolling is right,
For websites, for art, for that clean and flat light,
Whatever it is that they do in the ads.
And it's true that it fits not so well in the hand,
It might even be that it's not "ergonomic".
There is, I admit, some risk, when it's chronic,
Of pain in the tendons and pulleys and such.
The solution is simple: Don't use it so much!
Use keyboard shortcuts! (Though if it be true
That you must always be mousing, this one ain't for you.)
But all of these virtues, all that I sing,
Are missing the point of the Magic Mouse Thing.
The point is more than pointing. If you need your mouse to dash
The Magic can't do that. But if, instead, you seek panache,
If you are looking for something with verve,
Something whose curves let it cook, let it serve,
If just the right click makes you go "Oh yes"
And you want integration into macOS,
And you want more of swiping and tapping and sliding
Than to be captured in silly and fractious in-fighting,
Something that abandons none of its vision
For critics who bay with disdainful derision,
If you are looking for the Form of the mouse,
With only one button, one switch, and no doubts,
If you've been looking for the essence of taste,
That encourages you to abandon your haste,
If you want to enter an effortless mood,
No shortcuts, no macros (yep, just like my food!),
And you want something pretty to sit on your table
That gives praise in its pureness, almost like Abel,
A mouse that seeks only a formal ideal,
That seeks only elegant beauty with zeal,
That offers Utility, Function, and Cost to the pyre,
Practicality, even, and instead stokes Desire,
If what you want — if what you need —
Is a mouse that gives all to one unified creed,
An object devoted to nothing but grace,
Give Magic a try. So ends my case.
