PT-LawMom

Spent all weekend trying to work on a paper that I have to present in draft form to my professor today during conference. Encountered multiple roadblocks, including a school festival at Pumpkinhead’s Montessori that we *had* to attend, multiple calls/crises from my parents, and drama with my husband (not to mention, yes, the f^(*5ing pain). Finally got it together yesterday and was on a roll. Then at 6:32, my printer stopped dead. Little orange light blinked “Toner”.

So I looked up “Office Depot” only to find it shut at 7 p.m. Grabbed the toner cartridge out of the printer and raced to the store. Nope, they were all out of the brand name toner and the store brand but their other store had six. Raced a few miles up the road and got there with 5 minutes to spare. Threw the old toner in the recycling bin, commented on how light the new toner box was compared to the one I had just recycled [Hmm, wonder why ], paid and raced out the door with the manager locking it behind me.

Get home, unwrap the toner, pull the sheath off and… wait a minute. Why is there this black roller strip of nasty toner dust staring up at me?!? And why is it too small for my printer? Every HP laser printer I’ve ever used, at home and at work, you just pull out the toner cartridge and pop another in. Wait… Think dopey brain, think… Wasn’t there something weird about this new Brother laser printer you got last year in the middle of all the BIG PAIN DRUGS? Oh yeah, the drum unit.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I win the prize for best act of self-thwarting the night before a paper is due (although thank God it’s only a conference and it’s not actually “due”). I recycled the $200 drum unit into which my toner cartridge fits. In my defense, the whole thing really is the same size as a full HP cartridge and if any of you know what those look like you will know I’m not completely crazy. I was just so rushed and panicked trying to get there before the store closed and get out before they kicked me out that I didn’t look closely. My brain just needs a bit more time these days to think through things — perhaps I would have realized my error if I’d had a bit more time to ponder the serious lightness of the box versus the weight of the part I had just put in the bin.

Good news is that after calling the store 10 times in a row, security finally picked up and took a message. Fifteen minutes later, a manager who was doing paperwork called me back and said he had gotten the message, retrieved my cartridge and has it at the front waiting for my mother to pick it up. Thank God!

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 7:03 am and is filed under Law School . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.