Gather ye ink cartridges while ye may

On Sunday my home printer ran out of ink. I had a project due on Monday. I could have bought more ink, but I bought sushi instead. I thought I’d come to school early on Monday morning, when I'd have plenty of time to print my project on the DC workroom printer.

So yesterday I arrived at school, went to the workroom, and plugged in my flash drive. I opened my project, saved it to desktop, clicked the print icon, and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

First I checked the printer to make sure there were no flashing red lights or paper jams. It looked okay to me. Then I checked the printer tray to make sure my paper didn’t quietly pop out without the machine making its usual whirring sounds -- nope. I hit the print button again. And again. Still no whirring sounds. I walked over to the IT call phone to ask if there was a problem with the printer. The tech guy told me yes, in fact, the network is unusually slow and printing is taking forever all over the campus.

Oh, did I mention I had my cranky five-year-old son with me?

Because my little guy was with me, the only reason I came to the college was to quickly print my project , hand it in, and leave. Now I was stuck waiting for my paper to slowly snake its way through the campus print cue, to print at some unknown time in the future. I stared at the printer, thinking of the cliche "a watched pot never boils."

Finally, the printer jumped to life. My classmate's stuff printed first. That figures.

Silence again. Other classmates began filing out the door, heading over to class. (Come on, Come on, PRINT!!) The printer hummed again. And finally, there it was! My project dropped, page by page, into the printer's tray.

Even though I got to school an hour before the project was due, I found myself shuffling papers and scrambling to organise my project minutes before the deadline.

What I learned: don’t buy sushi with your ink jet money.