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When you cover an industry whose typical level of quality routinely begets stories like "How to Survive the Worst PC Disasters" and "Wipe Out Windows Annoyances," you come to expect that dealing with new tech equipment will bring irritations, aggravations, and delays. Purchase a new computer, and you anticipate several days of woe. Install a new network, and you know you'll be running from room to room in search of the mojo that will let computer A see computer B--and, when you get that right, vice versa.

But even a task as apparently straightforward as attaching a peripheral is rarely easy. Plug in a smart phone, and you'll find yourself installing synchronization software and maybe a driver, and babying them into submission. Fire up a new multifunction printer, and several hours of software installation later, some of the functions may actually work.

You might think no such problems could possibly arise with a product as simple as a mouse. But they do. The optical model that came with my latest PC had unacceptably stiff buttons and a shape that hurt my hand. Its replacement--an ancient mechanical Microsoft one I cannibalized from my old system--began insisting on bouncing the cursor around the screen no matter how often I cleaned its ball and fuzzy innards. I realized it was time to go shopping.

Once, a computer mouse was pretty much just a computer mouse. No more. In the aisles of a nearby office-supply store I found an overabundance of mice of every possible variety. Corded mice, USB-only and with PS/2 connectors. Cordless mice, rechargeable and not, Bluetooth and proprietary. Notebook mice with retractable cords. Mice with antibacterial housings. Mice with a ball where the scroll wheel should be. Mice in white, black, silver, gray, and even cute tiger stripes. Sixty-dollar mice, and mice for a ten-spot.

None were unwrapped and open for testing, so some culling was necessary. Cordless mice were out; the last time I tested one, I kept getting messages about driver errors every time I booted up. Besides, I have enough batteries to manage without adding yet another. And hey, my desktop machine isn't likely to wander any farther than the length of the cord.

Ultracheapies? Too much like the throw-in loser I received with my PC. Extra buttons? Too much effort to program and learn 'em. Funny shapes and configurations? Too much of an ergonomic gamble. In the end, I went with a $20 Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical, with both USB and PS/2 connectors.

Pleasing plus: The plastic bubble sealing the mouse in its package required only fingers to open it. Annoying minus: The box included a CD-ROM. Having been burned in the past by add-on pointing software, I ignored it.

I plugged the mouse into the PS/2 port and booted up. No messages about new drivers. No software to install. No additional effort or learning curve. The mouse felt fine in my hand, the buttons were satisfyingly responsive, and though the scroll wheel seemed a tad loose, I was happy. The thing even tracked well on my off-white Formica desktop, allowing me to keep my workspace mouse-pad-free. Success!

Remember the broken promise called "Plug and Play"? Remember when Microsoft touted the hapless Windows Me with the slogan "It Just Works"? Then you'll realize how pleasantly surprising it is to see, for once, a glimmer of the simplicity that by now should be second nature in the PC world--but almost never is.