28 April 2010

why do i wait until the last minute?

Have This:


(Desperately) Looking for This:


Stupid dell printers are making this procrastination habit of mine a touch more difficult. Or stupid dell ink, rather.

I have an old dell printer, back from the dark ages (read: college). It's huge. It's one of those 3-in-1s that is supposed to scan, print, copy, and fax (wait... that's 4 functions... maybe it's a 4-in-1). Anyway, it only prints now because it's hardware doesn't get along with Vista. Sidenote: Yes, still running Vista because I believe in doing things the hard way, not the easy way (The easy way would be Windows 7).

It EATS ink. I've always had a problem with the whole "cheap printer and expensive ink" thing. I know it's a business strategy called the Loss Leader (aka razor and blade) pioneered by Gillette who realized that they could take a loss on the razor and make it up by ripping everyone's eyes out on the blade prices. Those b*stards. I'm more in the camp that I like to buy an expensive things to get marginally better prices in the future (I have dubbed this the "Prius Hybrid Strategy.")

So it was Saturday night, I had to print off something by 8:30AM on Sunday and I. Had. No. Ink. I usually order my ink online, but as it's liquid gold, I was putting it off and spending my money on other, more important things (nail polish, wine, and picture frames).

Down to the wire (ug, this is the story of my life lately...) I headed out to Target, where Yahoo Search told me Dell ink was located.

Liars.

Target said Best Buy may have it. I headed to Best Buy.

Liars.

The Google search engine told me Staple would have it.

Staples was... closed. (It was almost 9 on a Saturday night, to be fair to the Big Box Store.)

F Word.

I truged home, where (my hero) Amos found some color ink we hadn't used. He put it in and -- volia! -- I was able to print. Granted, it was bright blue but if anyone has a problem with it, I suggest they take it up with Dell.





That's it. There's no real ending to this story.

6 comments:

  1. This post made me laugh out loud!
    Sorry about your ink plight though, that part is not funny. If you ever want to hear the worlds longest and angriest tirade about Gillette's Loss Leader strategy ask my husband how he feels about razor blades. Nothing will put him in a worse mood faster than having to put razor blades on the shopping list. I told him to grow a beard, he did not find that very funny.

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  2. You are a great writer, I laughed out loud too!

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  3. ah! you girls' comments made me feel so special!

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  4. Agreed with them!
    And don't worry, I've got Vista, too, and an old HP printer that isn't compatible with it. And by don't worry, I guess I'm saying "you're not alone in this b.s."

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  5. Our dell all-in-one just recently died (after like 7 years, and we got it used, so can't really complain). Had the compatibility issue as well. Solution: You should have some version of ABBYY Reader on your computer (generally comes pre-installed). If you open that, and choose your dell as your input, it will let you scan. Bonus, it is pretty good at converting to text documents as well.

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  6. Oh my goodness! I know that feeling. Great story. I'm still laughing.

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