Very soon, you'll be seeing the new BorgCo touchscreen cleaner
booths in hotels, shopping malls, rail stations and airports.
Resembling an ATM, the principle is simple. Select the service you
require, and make payment via cash, credit card, or text message.
There are different prices - like
a car wash - for anything from a basic
screen clean to a full polish and orofice cleaning. Place your device in
the drawer, close it, and wait.
After a short interval of whirring, buzzing, clicks and beeps, your now-
pristine phone or tablet is returned to you.
Inside, the unit is simplicity itself; a pump-sprayer of cleaning solution,
an array of wipes, cloths and pads, a selection of cotton buds and
toothpicks, an MP3 player with a recording of whirring, buzzing, clicks
and beeps, and a small, frail, elderly person who's desperate for
money.
Field testing has shown that small, frail, elderly people are the ideal
operators for the unit, as they are easily cowed into climbing into the
box, where it's nice and warm, and they can practice for being in a
coffin. Elders with colostomy bags are preferred as they don't have to
be provided with a bucket, and there are no unpleasant odours
emanating from the ventilation slots.
The more mentally agile ones will be trained to do a quick scan of the
phone to see if there's anything worth downloading; if so, they can
illuminate a CALL ATTENDANT annunciator. By the time the customer
has walked to the newspaper stand and returned with the attendant,
the download will be complete and their phone will be back in the
drawer.