I came in this morning energized, ready to get loads of work done and many things accomplished, and as per usual when I feel that way, Fate has other ideas. I made a few corrections to a spreadsheet and printed it. My productivity ended there. My mac-daddy hoopty printer started LYING to me. I have my very own Hewlett-Packard Business Inkjet 2600 - notice that it’s not exactly inexpensive. I knew it was going to start malfunctioning because the warranty is up August 21, but for that very reason I didn’t expect to deal with any HP fuckwittage until week after next.

So anyway, it starts telling me that there is a paper jam and it cannot eject paper, which is a bald-faced LIE because there’s no paper stuck anywhere, and it CAN SO eject paper, because every time I unplug the power supply and cycle it back on, or take it off-line and put it back, it shoots out one or two blank pieces of paper before it tells me that it’s jammed and can’t. I tried the various computer repairs I know, such as turning the entire system off and rebooting, cycling the printer power supply, poking interior parts at random and then, the ultimate fix: giving it the middle-finger salute and screaming, "Liar liar pants on fire!" when it flashed the erroneous message.

Simultaneously, I had an e-mail from my wonderful boyfriend, who just happens to be a very clever computer geek. I told him how my morning was going and he replied via e-mail (without even seeing my printer or having a manual for my particular model, mind you) that a paper sensor was either jammed, broken or dirty. I opened the front cover and even though I scowled really, really menacingly, no little parts leaped up and yelled, "Hey, I’m a paper sensor! Check me! Check me!" Stupid Hewlett-Packard.

With a heavy, martyred sigh I called HP. Nobody in tech support ever believes me when I tell them what it’s doing and what I’ve tried thus far, so of course the first thing Canadian HP Guy wants me to do is cycle the power off and on, with and without the USB cable connected. I think I showed remarkable restraint as I refrained from snarling, "Dude! - if that would’ve worked, would I be calling you?!?" Next we began the HP tried-and-true method of printer diagnostics, which consists of removing each ink cartridge and each print head one by one, cycling the power between each removal and acting totally astonished when the error message is not anything about missing ink cartridges and print heads, but rather "Jam - unable to eject paper. Check trays, rear manual feed and inside front cover". I know this is standard HP diagnostics because of the FIRST hoopty 2600 I had, which after about 3 months of normalcy insisted upon eating a new yellow print head each morning, and eventually insisted that brand new yellow print heads were bad - which is another saga in itself, but let’s just say HP has had to make good on their warranty more than once already. I have a replacement replacement, and probably would have bought a totally different one if all this fuckwittage hadn’t occurred under the original warranty. But I digress...

After much plugging and unplugging, removal and replacement of trays, cartridges and printheads, powering on and off ad nauseam, Canadian HP Guy finally says (no, sadly, I'm not joking about this) "Hmmm...it seems to be a printer problem." Gee, you think? Fuckin' DUH. Next he starts giving instructions about appropriate packing, shipping with return authorization, what's your credit card number in case you don't return the other one in time, etc. so I said, "Look, this is stupid. My boyfriend does hardware support for a living, and he says it's a problem with a paper sensor. Can't you just TELL me where the paper sensor is, and TELL me how to check it, because I don't think a replacement is necessary. I'd like to just get this fixed so we can both move on with our lives." Silence. Long silence. Then "Ummm...yah, I guess I could do that. It's inside the...blah blah blah"

Once he'd told me where to find it and which thingy it was, I poked it back into place (one side had come unplugged) with my left index finger and I'm once again printing happily. Three things about this that blow my mind - (1) the actual problem turned out to be the first thing Alan told me, and HE managed to figure it out without all the plugging and unplugging of ink cartridges and printheads and USB cables that Canadian HP Guy insisted on; (2) how expensive it was gonna be to ship this one back, ship me a refurbed unit and then refurb this one, as opposed to telling me to look at (and poke) the little black thingy, but Canadian HP Guy never even mentioned it, and wouldn’t have told me how to find it if I hadn't asked. Sheesh. Oh, yeah, and the third thing that blows my mind? All this took place under warranty. You'd think it'd happen the day after...

MONTOYA DELENDA EST!