Canned air has become an office staple for cleaning your keyboard, dusting your CPU tower, and blowing all the dust bunnies off your desk. You’d be hard-pressed to find an IT department that doesn’t have a case or two lying around, and if they tell you they don’t have any then they’re lying to you. They just don’t want to give up the goods.
I was spraying down my keyboard the other day (bagel Friday-don’t judge) and I thought about what other jobs canned air is used for. I use it at home to clean blinds, fans, and spray off the top of my kitchen cabinets and a co-worker uses them to dust her silk plants, but what else are they good for? A quick internet search came up with a plethora of ideas, from the brilliant to the hilarious.
- Blow dust off of delicate models such as cars, boats, and doll houses. Have you ever tried to Pledge a miniature china hutch?
- Blowing out the dust bunnies behind the two ton entertainment center that you will never move
- Spraying the crumbs your child left behind in the backseat of your car/van/SUV
- Freezing gum on a carpet for easy removal. I wonder if that works with hair…
- If you cut hair for a living, it works to blow hair off your clients neck better than a hairdryer. Just don’t give them freezer burn.
- Giving a boost to your straw-blow gun during a game of Office Domination. That is so not cheating…
- Blowing spiders out of the side-view mirrors on your car. The little suckers always seem to hide in there.
- Airing out your cubicle during a…methane…leak. Yeah.
- You know how your cat tends to sit on the keyboard when you’re trying to work? One quick burst is painless. Scary, but painless.
- Saving the Eiffel Tower from an evil sock monkey