THE PRINTER

I was going to start this post by telling you how evil I am, then I remembered the little girl next door used to use the word evil all the time and I found it rather offensive, so instead, I'll tell you how selfish I am. Manipulative and egotistical might work too. Perhaps just PREGNANT, because I'll be the first to admit, I've been a bit of a itch with a b lately. Just a bit though. I was talking to someone today about the possibility of high blood sugar and she asked if I was having mood swings. HA! That's an understatement. My mood goes from bad to worse. Anyhoo....

So I needed to print out a resume for this position I am volunteering to do. They have asked me to "drop in" tomorrow on the board meeting and bring a hard copy of my resume. (note to self, breathe). My printer has been out of ink since I put the damn cartridge in. I fact it is so new that the old cartridge is still sitting on my desk waiting to be disposed of. I assure you this says more about the lack of printing I've done than the lack of housekeeping. Really. My father has been trying to sell me on a refill kit so I decided to give it a try. I rushed out to Staples to find the door locked in my face. The manager did apologize, but he wasn't sorry enough to let me in. Instead I had to get back into the van (no easy feat these days!) and drive to the dreaded supercenter.

I waddled around the best I could and found the ink section. It was very confusing but eventually I found a refill kit to buy. And some chocolate because I don't think I have been getting enough of that important food group.

The self checkout machine instructed me to run the ink over the special star to deactivate the security system, and I did. I paid and neatly put (shoved) the receipt into my wallet. At that moment it occurred to me that someone might want to see my receipt and in the next moment I decided that I wasn't going to show it. I was tired of waddling, my pelvis hurt, and I wanted to sit. I planned my exit to coincide exactly with a woman leaving with a cart full of groceries. Isn't that awful?! When the alarm went off I knew full well it was ME, or rather my ink that set if off, yet I didn't stop. I kept walking and let them ask the poor woman with the groceries for her receipt. I did feel bad, but in that moment I felt like it was survival of the fittest and I was well prepared!

If I had posted when I got home that would be the end. But no, Karma sucks.

The directions for refilling the ink tell me that for my printer I should turn to page 21. Only the directions actually start on page 19. I have already ripped the label off the cartridge when I discover a little dohickey for puncturing it. No biggie. I refill the ink, and carefully follow the instructions to:

Turn off computer
Place a piece of clear adhesive tape over the top left contact while being careful not to tape over any of the other contacts that are all the size of a pin head.
Return cartridge to printer, close the lid, and turn on the computer.
Remove the cartridge and place a piece of clear adhesive tape over the top right contact while being careful not to tape over any other the 29 other contacts.
Return the cartridge, wait one minute.
Remove the cartridge, place a piece of clear adhesive tape over the two top right contacts blah blah careful other contacts.
Return cartridge to printer, wait one minute, twirl three times, throw a pinch of salt over right shoulder.
Remove cartridge from printer and carefully remove ALL adhesive tape. Return cartridge. Turn off printer.
Wait 20 seconds and turn printer back on.
Chant something about honoring the print gods
Sacrifice a goat
The ink level should now read full.

Only it doesn't.

These are my personal addendum:
Remove printer from desk
Open window.
Throw printer, cartridge, and adhesive tape out window.
Get into hot tub.
Call friend and tell her you need her printer.
Go to friend's house with special paper.
Print a test copy and notice that the printer ate one piece of the special paper.
Try again with less special special paper.
Notice that the formatting is off.
Call home and ask husband to look at original formatting.
Spend 45 minutes reformatting
Print on kinda special paper
Notice a typo
Fix typo
Print
Make a joke that goes something like" TeeHee, let's hope I got my own phone number right BAHAHAHAHAHA" Notice that the phone number is wrong.
Retype phone number.
Reprint.
Notice that formatting is again off.
Fix
Reprint.
Decide that "working with a diverse team" doesn't sound quite right, and "putting up with assholes" also seems off. Spend 10 minutes trying to find a nice way to say as much.
Retype
Reprint
Lather
Rinse
Repeat for at least an hour.

The reason that there were typos to begin with is that my resume was on the old computer and I had to redo the entire thing by hand yesterday. I spend a solid two hours working on the damn thing. So you see, there just wasn't time to prove to the Walmart police that I paid for the damn ink (that I can't even use!).