(Powering up the printer…)
Printer: “Oh, hey, what’s going on? What day is it? Wow, I’ve been out for a while, huh?”
Me: “I need you to print out this sample ballot so I can mark it up and take it with me to the polls,”
Printer: “Oh hell, yeah! I love to print sample ballots! Woo-hoo! Except, ummm, you still haven’t replaced that black ink cartridge, bro,”
Me: “I have one here,”
Printer: “Oh, thank HP – that was going to be really awkward. LOL. I mean, I could mix the colors of ink together to approximate black ink, but you didn’t really like that idea last time. Go ahead and open me up, I’m ready for that fresh ink!”
Me: “Okay, the lid is open. Go ahead and move the ink cartridges where I can reach them,”
Printer: “ummm… did that do it?”
Me: “No, not yet,”
Printer: “How about now?”
Me: “No,”
Printer: “Okay, that should do it. Bring on that sweet, sweet ink,”
Me: “Okay, the cartridge is in place. I’m closing the lid,”
Printer: “I can’t wait. This is going to be AWE-SOME,”
Me: “Okay, let’s print out…”
Printer: “Wait, wait, wait. I need to charge the ink,”
Me: “What does that do?”
Printer: “Shhhh… I need to concentrate,”
Time passes.
Me: “Are you done?”
Printer: “No, jeez, give me a minute.”
Me: “How about now?”
Printer: “NO! What is your problem? I’m still charging the… okay, I’m done. You can print. Let’s do this shit,”
I hit the print button.
Printer: “Oh yeah! We’re printing! We’re PRINTING! YES, YES!”
Printer: “Okay, I’m done. That was awesome – some of my best work,”
Me: “Really? ‘Cause every inch down the page is a line where only the top third of the text is readable,”
Printer: “Wow, what? That’s crazy. I mean, there’s nothing wrong on my end. Are you sure you did it right?”
Me: “I just hit the print button on a PDF. What else should I have done?”
Printer: “Wow, okay, nice attitude. I guess I could print it again and see if I can sort out your problem. Or we could do a test page – I’ve got the ink for that…”
Me: “No. No, this is fine. Well, not ‘fine’, but it will do, I guess,”
Printer: “You’re the boss. Wait, what are you doing? Why are… NO, NOT THE POWER BUTTON! NOOOOooooo….”
I’m never really going to win, am I?