The left mouse button on my Thinkpad has died. It's actually the second time this has happened, surprising in that my Thinkpad is barely two years old. The button relies on a little rubber nipple piece that sits between the physical button and the switch. When it broke last year I took the laptop apart and switched the piece from the middle button (which I've yet to figure out how or what to use it for) with the left button. Now I have no pieces to switch and must make the dreaded call to IBM service. Dreaded...because I know they will refused to sell me the replacement piece, instead that I will need to ship it in for repairs (kind of stupid for what must be a $0.50 piece at most). Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

A quick search of the ibm.com website shows that the suggested fix is to replace the entire keyboard (FRU 02K5883). Of course, nearly ten years after ibm.com went online there is still no mapping of FRU to part number on the stinking website.