I've spilled great a many a drinks on my iMac's keyboard and it never rendered the keyboard dead, so much as it caused all the keys to type like a jumbled mess.
Also if it's an external alluminum keyboard, you're kinda screwed. In the past I've read that Apple glues theirs shut, rather than using screws or anything like that, so you can't exactly open it to do much of anything. Popping the keys won't help much either and the keys seem rather difficult to replace...
Edit: Wait huh? I guess I was on the wrong track. That's a rather odd and awkward bug... I never noticed it before but I never used mail either since most free services don't offer POP, so you have to come to their site and look at their ads, so yeah...