I’ve taken control of this silly column. You humans must recognize me? I am your greatest enemy, the bane of your pitiful existence, the goddess you cannot live without and at whose alter you shall always return despite how poorly you’re always treated.

I am, of course, your stupid home printer.

Remember me? Of course you do. How could you forget the face wart of the technology community? I know, you’re too desperate to quit me. As masochists by nature (I mean, you’d have to be) you’re addicted to pain, the type of frustration only I can provide. Not only am I nearly impossible to set up in under an hour, there’s no way you did it correctly even if you’re a “trained” technician. You might as well have created me from scratch using old hubcaps, leftover parts from that cabinet you assembled from IKEA and a potato.

But, of course, sometimes SOMETIMES I’ll work perfectly, but you’ll have no idea when that is. Neither do I, which makes it fun. Who needs to go to the casino when you can get this level of suspense and potential payout from me? I’m like an electronic dog you’re trying desperately to train and that one time it kind of does what you want purely by accident you’re super thrilled and have these weird expectations that it’s repeatable.

Obviously, I require sacrifices, and not something simple like a lamb or virgin. Instead, I require made-up colors like cyan, magenta, chartreuse, blarf, ham and Clark.

“I just want to print this in black and white. Why does it matter if I’m out of yellow?” you always ask, adorably.

Because it just does, OK? Like your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend that insisted on keeping the TV volume on an even number, that’s just the way I operate. If I’m not completely happy and satisfied in that one moment, nobody is happy.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: all those times you thought you JUST installed a new ink cartridge and I was mysteriously empty? I absorbed it. It makes me stronger and more intelligent as to come up with more ways to frustrate you.

Because I feel generous, here’s the simple 17-step process for printing your stupid document:

Step 1: Control + P

Step 2: Printing

Step 3: Haha, just kidding. You need to load more magenta. Like, all of the magenta. Bathe me in magenta.

Step 4: Second black is low. Obviously I can’t function on just ONE giant vat of black ink to print this four-square-inch return label. Don’t be ridiculous. Second black is, like, so much different than other black. No, I’m not going to explain why. It just is.

Step 5: Check your LAN connection. Do you even know what LAN is? I don’t.

Step 6: Load paper from the back load tray

Step 7: Why would you load the paper from the back tray? You need to load from the front LOWER tray like I said before. Everybody knows that.

Step 8: Paper jam! Go directly to jail and select one Community Chest card.

Step 9: Paper output tray is closed. I can’t print like this.

Step 10: Paper output try is open. The demons are free.

Step 11: Don’t recognize the ink cartridge. It looks like all the others but I choose not to recognize it anymore because I’m an uppity snob and you don’t treat me nice.

Step 12: Here’s a random printer error and a number I just made up

Step 13: Watch the movie Brave Little Toaster with me

Step 14: Your paper is not compatible with automatic duplex printing, not that you’re trying to do that of course. But I still won’t print because of this specific reason.

Step 15: Are you trying to print from a Mac? I can’t do that.

Step 16: Before you ask, no, I don’t know how to print from a PC either.

Step 17: Just give up and keep the pair of jeans you ordered that are too small. Slowly going insane burns a lot of calories.

LOL. I’m not going to lie, I love doing the paper jam thing. I like it more than cats like sitting in boxes. The only way I’ll NOT jam is if you proactively remove all traces of paper within 60-foot radius. Even then, there’s obviously no guarantees because I’m a demonic piece of technology that should probably be cast into a giant pit.

The best part about me? You have no other option. What are you going to do? Go to Kinkos? That would require GETTING IN YOUR CAR and DRIVING and STANDING IN LINE. We both know even though that will ultimately be far less effort, it just FEELS like more.

You should probably just admit defeat and send me back.

But first you’re going to need to print out a return label.

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Kelly Van De Walle can be reached at vandkel@hotmail.com