Not a review: Logitech M125 in ‘A Lonely Place to Point and Click’

Rays of sunlight pierced my venetian blinds, sending UV rays lasering into my room. As I raised my trembling hand to shield my eyes, a tiny Logitech mouse cracked me across the bridge of my nose. Why was it tied to my hands? What happened the night before, and where the hell was my coffee?

The office, yesterday, 4:30pm
The Logitech M125 mouse, a tiny nugget of user interface fun was thrown onto my desk. “Here, review it. Make it shine,” my editor said. “Make it fantastic. I want to laugh. I want to cry.”

The mouse is the most important piece of input hardware before touchscreen rolled along. It’s still my favourite navigational tool. It’s genius in concept, but like a paperclip there’s not a lot to it. So what can one say about the M125? When one can’t talk specs, one talks lifestyle. Journalist lifestyle. Gonzo lifestyle. Hard drinkin’. Hard smokin’. Hard pointin’.

This was personal. I muttered loud enough for the office to hear, “Where’s the damn cord? Is this wireless? There’s no switch to turn it on. What the hell?” Five seconds later, I find it. It’s a USB mouse, with the plug magnetically affixed to the bottom in a discrete insert. The cord is retractable, pulls out and can be used like whip to smack interns around. That’s why you have them. Interns, that is.

The beer o’ clock alarm sounds on my iPhone. It’s whiskey time.

The local drinking hole, 8:00pm

The mouse is now neatly contained inside my hipster jeans, skin-tight, form-fitting, accentuating the whippet-lean curves of my flanks. There is just a tiny bulge where my fat money clip should be. My cash had run dry earlier in the evening and four empty tumblers of whiskey-scented melted ice lie next to me, spent cartridges of a battle bravely won. From the depths of hell, a booze-hound corners me and my only remaining conversational ammo was the M125.

“It’s really small. Tiny in fact,” I say boozily “And look at this goddamn cord! How neat is this?” I whip the half-metre flattened retractable cord out and proceeded to pretend-choke my new drinking partner. He was not amused.

The Streets of Cape Town, 1:00am
Everything was a blur now. The 1000dpi high-definition optical tracking of the M125 mattered not. My new best friend turned out to not give a toss how consistently you could select a single pixel, every time. He’d staggered off to try make it with some chick with a Tux crop-top. The M125’s smoothly rounded shape that cleaves deliciously to the sensuously curved cup of your palm may be ideal for slipping into tightly stuffed laptop bags, but it wasn’t going to scrape the encrusted dirt from my slacks. And the retractable cord, so delicate but so robust, wasn’t stopping the cop from pepper-spraying my already red, glazed eyes.

Home, 5:30am
I later learn from my doorman that the nice police officers discovered my address after pawing through my pockets. Turns out there was an old utility bill I’d stuffed in the back pocket when I went to get RICA’d last year. They then flung me to the pavement in front of my building, sans dignity, sans consciousness, sans trousers.

I sit now, with mouth like an ashtray, eyes the colour of a stubbed-out cigarillo butt, lashed to the chair front of the computer banging out reviews. The M125 is by my side and a damn fine mouse it is. Compact, quick and retract-o-licious, the M125 is not only a great mouse, it’s the best drinking partner a man can have.