I'm one savvy lady.

So, we've been having some technical issues here at Kimchi HQ. Our lovely printer shot craps a few months ago and after I stopped being mad at it, I decided that my career as a graphic designer requires I be able to print things. Duh. This is not news. I've been shopping around for a printer for a bit, not that it matters because every one I've had works for a while and then breaks and I get mad and buy a new one and the cycle continues. This time, however, I wasn't so keen to run out and throw my money in the gutter willynilly so I've been doing research to get a good deal. This is not something I do with regularity, but something I learned from Jeff. He researches everything we buy to make sure we're getting THE BEST DEAL EVER. Sometimes he even researches things he isn't going to buy JUST IN CASE. I am too impatient and I like to live on the edge. Anyway, I finally found a printer at Sam's that seems to be only a minor piece of crap so I might actually get more than a year or so out of it. I told Jeff about it and he agreed it was a good deal so I was ready to buy. However...

A day later my laptop broke. My screen just went white. One minute it worked and the next minute, nothing. I use my laptop ALL DAY LONG, for work things, blogging, general time wasting and sanity control. Jeff bought it for me as a graduation gift only one year ago, actually 1 year and 6 weeks, which is 6 weeks past the warranty expiration date of course, and he spent a good deal on it knowing I would be using it for my big fancy memory sucking design programs. Anyway, the printer issue got shoved to the side so we could deal with this more expensive and pressing matter. The laptop looks to be a lost cause. The repair dude said it's either a really expensive fix or a really, REALLY expensive fix. Long story short, I may now own the world's most expensive paper weight. We've been shopping for a new one but the prospect of dropping a wad of cash right now on another one makes my stomach twist.

Well, Jeff decided that he would try to make at least one of these situations better and decided to try to fix the printer himself before paying for a new one. He went to the Cannon site and got all these instructions on fixing the roller, which it seemed was the problem. The paper kept getting sucked in all wonky and the error light would flash and it seemed to be really angry at us. He did all these diagnostic things and I heard a lot of beeps and clicks and then I heard him say "you have got to be kidding me." I came in to see what was kidding him because a broken printer is no laughing matter, and he was standing there shaking his head.

me: "Did you fix it?"
Jeff: "Um, yeah I did."
me: "HOORAY!!! Was it the roller?"
Jeff: No, it wasn't. It was this." He held up a pen. More specifically, one of my special designy pens.
me: "huh?"
Jeff: "There was a pen lodged in the paper tray. That's all that was wrong. It works fine now."

Hmm. A pen dropped in it. I've been without a printer FOREFFINGEVER and it was a stupid PEN. So, the printer wasn't broken after all. The problem is that the owner of the printer is a dumbass. I've decided to blame the pen getting in there on the baby. It's clearly his fault. Now, if only they'd opened my laptop and found that a cheerio had lodged itself in my motherboard instead of whatever crap went wrong with it. Anyway, moral of the story, before you buy a new printer, make sure I didn't drop a pen in it.