So there I was on the train from Boston to New York. I like the Quiet Car. It’s capitalized because it’s important that people in the Quiet Car REMAIN QUIET FOR THE ENTIRE TRIP. And still waters run deep if you’re like me.
Some guy across the row started jaw-jacking and asking questions about the laptop I had with me. It was a model that hadn’t been released yet and apparently this guy was so interested that he either threw the rules of the Quiet Car right out the non-opening train window or he didn’t realize he was in the CLEARLY MARKED Quiet Car. My money’s on the second one because he spent the rest of the train ride yawning loudly but not sleeping. Just sleep, Guy! You’ll kill two birds with one stone in the Quiet Car!
After I managed to calm the man down, I turned to focus on the task at hand: publishing timely technology news. For this, I would need a mouse. Well, I wouldn’t need a mouse but there’s nothing timely about using a standard laptop track pad—who’s with me?!
I like to travel unencumbered, so I packed this wireless Microsoft mouse that features a magnet on the back of it that you can use to secure the dumb little USB connector that all these wireless mice come with nowadays. Well, imagine my shock and horror when I found that the dumb magnetic USB connector had not stayed connected to the mouse. I almost screamed! Me! The guy who’s got such a Rules Boner for the Quiet Car!
So I had to stop at the Staples in Penn Station on my way to TIME HQ—if you’ve never been to an electronics store in a train station, add it to your bucket list—and after purchasing another wireless mouse from Microsoft solely for its dumb little USB connector, it flat-out didn’t work.
“Of course it doesn’t work!” I thought to myself as though I was still sitting in the Quiet Car. Each of these wireless mice are built to only work with their own dumb little USB receivers. God forbid they all use a standard like Bluetooth. Someone should invent a wireless mouse that works with an even more ubiquitous wireless standard like, oh I don’t know, Wi-Fi.
HP did it. This Wi-Fi Mobile Mouse wirelessly connects to your computer’s Wi-Fi connection, alleviating the need for a dumb little USB receiver. Its batteries also last nine months, says HP, which is a long, long time.
There are drawbacks! You must have a Windows 7 computer and that computer’s Wi-Fi connector must be Windows-certified. You also must install special HP software for your Wi-Fi Mobile Mouse to work correctly. And the mouse costs $50 and doesn’t look too fancy, although it does have optical tracking built into it and five customizable buttons.
I could have used this mouse on that trip I told you about, but that’s all in the past and this mouse will happen in the future—sometime in June, so write “Mouse today?” in pencil on your calendar for every date in June until we find out which day can be written in pen.
More on TIME.com:
HP Monitor Measures Less than Half an Inch Thick, Costs $250