Printer Fail

Are printers supposed to be so high-maintenance and temperamental?

Last night Father urgently needed me to type out a letter for him that needed to be sent the next day, which was this morning.  I wrote some stuff out, he okayed it, but even before I banged out the letter, I remembered that the magenta ink pack needed to be replaced.  So, even though it was past 9 o'clock and Wednesday night was a furnace outside (heat temperature around 95, felt like 102 with the humidity), I went out to get new ink.

I used my parents' minivan.  I asked for their permission, but why couldn't I use my car?  My only explanation is that Father and I used it around 6:30 that evening to go to a FedEx Kinko's.  The package that I didn't answer and sign for on Tuesday, along with more packages that came (which I did answer and sign for) Wednesday morning, contained stuff that he wanted sent to Las Vegas.  So he hurriedly repackaged them while I looked for the day's drop-dead times for pick-up, and then we went to send them.  That meant that the minivan's engine was hotter than mine, which meant that their car could more easily burn the contaminants in the oil, as opposed to mine, where the short trip, combined with the relatively cool engine, meant that a lot of impurities would remain in my car's engine.

Or, maybe I asked because I didn't want to "hurt" my car by taking it out for a short drive.  Because I'm a dick.

Anyway, after I came home from Target, I thought things would all be hunky-dory and I'd be able to print out this letter for him.  But after I change the magenta cartridge and hit print again, I saw that now the yellow ink cartridge had to be replaced.  Are you fucking kidding me?  What could have prompted that was the fact that there was a print job that was still in the printer queue that fired off as soon as I changed the magenta one.  That job was mine, namely coupons for the Command adhesive hangers by 3M that I need to buy to hang up my hat rack.  This printer prints in color and the coupons were colored, so I guess there wasn't a whole lot of yellow left in the old cartridge and it was used up by printing out these coupons.

I asked Father if he somehow had a yellow cartridge.  He said no, but the letter can wait till tomorrow, or even the next day.  I thought it had to go out this morning, Father!

Whatever.  I had time to buy a yellow cartridge (and just to save myself another trip I bought a triple cartridge containing yellow, magenta and cyan packs) today, and I would get things all fixed after I got home from "work" (actually going to the North Stars Alumni Reunion in Roseville, followed by going down to Hooters Mall of America to watch the NBA Draft [aside: my waitress was a trainee with a barebelly shirt, massive tits and cleavage I so wanted to stick my penis into!], then catching a concert by a band I recommend, Cory Chisel and the Wandering Suns [aside: I wanted to buy a CD there, but it was $10 and all I had was a $50 I resolved earlier this evening to deposit and not break because ... I didn't want to "ruin" a good $50 bill.  Yes, I'm stupid weird).

So I get home, replace the yellow, and then I print.  In fact I had another letter Father wanted me to work on almost two months ago to the motherfuckin' day, and since I felt fully fortified I gave myself permission to be a rebel and print out both.  But after turning to the printer to see how it went, I saw ... virtually nothing.  One, maybe two sentences -- actually more like half-sentences -- were stranded amid white space I anticipated would be filled in with words I typed.  Fuck.

This means I need to give the printer a head cleaning.  Actually, I just push a button -- the printer head-cleans itself.  Then I printed out a nozzle check, where it prints wavy lines of each of the four colors it has.  All of a sudden the black doesn't show up.  I tried one, two, three more times, but each time there were very little, if any, black lines on the test.  I tried printing out the letter one more time, but still, barely two lines were even legible.

So now what?  Get a black cartridge?  I might need to just take my flash drive, load those pages onto it, take it to the fucking library and print it out there.  At least theirs works.  All this for a fucking letter. ...