HOW TO CLEAN PLAY-DOH OUT OF A GAME BOY
So, What was Santa thinking when he gave Steven, our 3 year old, a Game Boy AND Play-Doh for Christmas anyway? It was a day or two after the big day when one of the older children brought to me Steven's Game-Boy, saying it didn't work anymore, mentioning that "by the way" he put Play-Doh in the game slot. I looked in there to see the green goop smooshed inside the slot and in the game cartridge. Knowing how much "Santa" paid for the Game-Boy and the cartridge, and how quickly Play-Doh hardens to nearly as hard as a rock, I had to go to work right away trying to clean it out. It wasn't that easy though.
The cartridge slot on the back of a Game Boy is not as accessible to cleaning tools as it is to cartridges or other foreign objects (like Play-Doh), so I took it upon myself to remove the back cover. That was when I was stopped dead in my tracks by 6 "special" screws that probably nobody has a screwdriver for (except for the Nintendo manufacturer in China). The screws have 3 little notches instead of 4, like a Philips screwdriver. It is beyond me why they had to use these screws. What were they thinking? I painstakingly took one of the screws out with the blade of my pocket knife, but that must have been the loose one. None of the others would come out that way. I went out to my grinder and fashioned a "screwdriver" out of a nail. It wasn't an easy task though because I am used to grinding 2 or 4 equal surfaces on something, not 3. It took a few tries before I got it right. I was running out of nail. I finally made something that resembled a screwdriver and was able to carefully twist the remaining 5 screws out of the back of the Game Boy. That was the easy part.
I found the slot where the game cartridge fits in and tried sliding things in there to get the smooshed in Play-Doh. Everything was either too thin, too thick, or had handles that got in the way of the other parts. I stuck a piece of cardboard in there and got some of it out, then there was the stuff that was stuck in between all the tiny "teeth" in that slot. I tried other things: screwdrivers, knives, rolled up toilet paper, nails, wires, etc, etc. Nothing seemed to reach the stuff stuck between those "teeth." Then I got to thinking "Teeth!" You know what comes next… Yes, I grabbed a toothbrush and started brushing back and forth. That didn't work. I remembered that lesson they taught us in third grade (when the dental hygienist comes to school and gives everybody a toothbrush and those red pills) that you don't brush back and forth, but up and down. I had more success that way. I was still not 100% successful though. There was stuff still caught between the gold "teeth" and I would have tried dental floss if I could have gotten it to fit in there.
Out of desperation I grabbed a Q-tip and tried to shove it in the slot. It wouldn't fit, so I ripped most of the cotton off and it fit in the slot really tightly. It started getting the green Play-Doh off though. I went thought about 4 Q-tips, each getting more off until I didn't see any more sticking to the trace of cotton that was on the end of the Q-tip. I blew all the crumbs out of the slot and inspected it really closely and found that there was no visible green Play-Doh anymore. I slipped a game cartridge into the game and turned it on and it worked! I was so proud of myself, until I slipped the game cartridge in that I thought I cleaned the Play-Doh off of. It was Steven's favorite game too (the only one he knows how to play - Donkey Kong).
I figured that there was more Play-Doh stuck up inside the circuit board, which would involve taking the cartridge apart. That was a whole 'nother chore in itself. The game cartridges have special screws too, but not like the Game Boys. These screws are like reverse Torx screws with all the ridges on the outside instead of the inside. They are also recessed, so it would be impossible to take the screw out without seriously messing up the plastic case. There is only 1 screw though. Where there's a will, there's a way, since a game often costs almost half as much as a Game Boy. I put the tips of my wire clippers down in the recessed hole and clamped onto the ridges of the screw and twisted, taking a good share of the plastic off the recessed hole. It slipped off a few times, but I finally got it off. The covers slid open to reveal little scraps of Play-Doh stuck to the circuit board, which I brushed off with the toothbrush and polished with a pencil eraser. I put it back together the same way I took it apart and was so pleased with myself for fixing it.
I almost didn't give my son back the Game Boy, but I knew that his little heart would be sad if I didn't. I handed it back to him and told him that I fixed it. He said "oh." Then he grabbed it to go back in and play Donkey Kong with it. I explained to him that he shouldn't put anymore Play-Doh in it or anything else except Game Boy games, to which he responded, "oh." And went on playing.
The moral of the story? I can't think of one, except maybe that you should never allow "Santa" to give a three year old a Game Boy AND Play-Doh all in the same Christmas.
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