Today in my great shame:

Pictured: the Switch Dock

So it is with no small amount of shame that I tell you that I scratched my Switch screen and sent it back to the manufacturer to be fixed. And yes, I scraped it on the dock. If you don't know what I'm talking about, rest assured that this is both infuriating and embarrassing. Infuriating because the surface area of the Nintendo Switch is like 95% highly scratchable, breakable plastic. This is a problem because one of the console's key features is that you can place it in a dock that connects it to a television, which is great, but it can also damage the screen. Wait, can? No, will damage the screen.

 

What's that? More anxiety? Oh, just
go ahead and put it with the others.

Yes, it was a barely visible scratch on the left hand side of the screen, but there are two kinds of people in the world. The kind that walk around with a spider-web cracked smartphone screen, and those for whom even the slightest blemish keeps them up at night. I am obviously the latter, and while $140 is a ridiculous sum of money to fix something that is both not a big deal and is almost certain to happen again, I know it would cause me no small amount of anxiety. 

This glass has survived since the
twelfth century. I'm just saying is all.

And, unlike all the other things keeping me up at night, this could be fixed relatively easily--albeit expensive--to fix. "But why didn't you simply put a screen protector on it in the first place?" you might ask. Well, couple of things. First, there exists types of glass that are scratch and crack proof and the fact that they're using a plastic with the structural integrity of meringue is inexcusable. Here in anno domini MMXXIV it seems unlikely to me that science cannot produce a screen that can hold up to being tossed in a bag or whatever. This is just bad design.

This feels like pretty solid proof that
dust is sentient and has out for me.

But the other problem is I don't have access to a clean room. Because for real, have you ever tried to put a glass screen protector on a device with a screen? There is no amount of rubbing alcohol wipes or number of passes with a microfiber cloth that is going to keep the screen dust free long enough to apply the tempered glass. It's a physical impossibility to not end up with dust motes trapped forever in air bubbles under the glass.

I know this sort of thing shouldn't bother me, but you're with me, right? Even if you don't play video games, surely you've cracked your phone screen or felt your skin crawl whenever a coworker jabs at your monitor with a greasy finger. It's not a touch screen! you scream inwardly, but they just keep doing it. Is it asking too much that the screens in our lives remain perfect and unblemished forever? ...huh? Yeah. No, hear it. I get it, I need to relax.

Above: Nintendo, seen here counting the money I've given them over the years.