I’m full of rage.

It’s not my husband this time – though he is still a dick, just in case he does/has done something annoying in the past, or the future.

It’s not even the dog.  

What, you ask is the problem, then? (or at least you’d better ask, or this is going to be a very short post.)

The problem is the fucking printer!

I’m writing a book. You didn’t know? Gosh, I’m sure I’ve mentioned it.

The first draft of the book is done and signed off and now I am settled in for four months of editing.

I thought I’d go a bit mad and ask the printer to print out the manuscript – I know crazy.

Why are printers such dicks?

Where in the programming does it say behave like a truculent teenager, humans love that.

I’ve been trying to print the manuscript for four days.

Despite a full tray of paper, it declined to recognise the paper, as well paper. We chatted about it, I asked about past trauma with paper? Maybe if I changed the colour? We agreed that printing on fluorescent green paper was more its vibe, never mind that I might go blind having to read it.

No! No! I’m not judging your choices.  Please don’t stop printing, green is fine.

This should have been the end of it, but no.

The laptop started kicking off about how its choices were not respected. What if it wanted to type in fluorescent green? How come the printer got a choice and it didn’t? Maybe it wanted to express itself by only using yellow print – what then eh!

I turned both the printer and the laptop off and ran away.

Rookie error.

When I turned them back on they recognised there was work to be done and started printing the manuscript again…from the beginning. I now have three copies of the first 100 pages and nothing after that.

The paper row continued. The printer says there is no paper in the drawer, me screaming that, ‘there bloody is, I can bloody see it!’ This is not a dead cat in the woods situation. Or was the cat in a box. Or a cat in the hat?  

Maybe it’s a cry for help. 

Like a needy boyfriend, feeling insecure, the printer is creating drama just to keep me near. I’m reduced to anxiously hovering beside it, my heart stopping every time it takes a pause, wondering what problem it has now.

I think I’ve pissed it off.

Maybe I wasn’t looking appreciative enough?

Halfway through a print, it’s decided to forget about page numbers.

The laptop says it is nothing to do with them and sulks, flashing up signs that it hasn’t been saved for a while – a passive-aggressive threat that I could lose everything in a flicker of pixels.

I quickly hit save but then the printer is bored.

Sick of one page at a time,’ Oh my goddddd, how much did you write?’ (please read that last line in the voice of a teenager) the printer tries to swallow half a ream of paper in one go. Then full of swagger about being treated like an adult, it promptly bursts into tears, paper jammed up its hoo-ha and refuses to work for the rest of the day.  

It wants a lie down with some Netflix and snacks.

I know the feeling.

I’m only typing this because I’m forced to keep the fucker company as it fails to churn away.

I could be picking up all the printed pages spewed over the floor, but I don’t want any sudden moves to spook it.

Shit, it’s stopped again.

I’ve checked it has ink and paper.  It’s been for a wee and it’s not hungry.

I don’t know what else to do.

Printing the manuscript may have been a massive procrastination…now it feels like persecution.

It’s a good job I’m not printing this, can you imagine the shade?