Rebecca Nolen, Historical Diaries, writing

Finally got rid of the million dollar printer. I bought it about ten years ago when wide-format printers were really expensive and there was only one available. I didn’t know ten years ago that a printer like that would not only go down in price but there would be a lot more to choose from, all with better features.

When one ink cartridge would run out of ink the printer wouldn’t print. So if the magenta cartridge was empty, I couldn’t print a thing, not even with black ink. And the cartridges were tiny. The amount of ink inside them had to be minuscule. So I was forever running to Office Depot for more ink cartridges. And while there would inevitably decide that “while I’m there I should stock up on the ink cartridges.” The bill would top $100. For ink.

Today I was going to a birthday party for a friend who just turned 80. She was a neighbor in the old “hood”. A few childhood friends would be there. I scrambled through some old photo albums and came up with a great print that I knew one of my friends would love to have. It was a picture of my family standing next to her grandfather, in Pennsylvania, in 1970. We were neighbors here in Texas. So the photo is a little unusual. I scanned it. Printed it. Ink smears all over the paper. Globs of ink smears. So I cleaned the cartridge heads, and ran a cartridge check, etc. Everything looked good. I printed again. White lines through the faces. This time the printer sends me a message that there are parts that need to be services inside the machine. That’s nice, I thought, and proceeded to go through the head-cleaning process again. This time all the lights were blinking and it was frozen. Nothing.

That was it. I will not spend another dime on this printer. However, it was full of cartridges (there are nine) that if I return them to Office Depot, they will credit my account two dollars a piece. The machine was frozen. I couldn’t get to the cartridges. So I tossed it off the balcony.

No really. I did.

The neighbor took pictures.