Of Pigs and Printers

by Christie Kelley

Technology is my friend…except when it’s not. It’s great when technology works properly and everything goes smooth. Unfortunately, Saturday wasn’t one of those days.

I seem to have an issue with printers. When I need them the most, something always seems to go terribly wrong.

I used to have my office in an open area of my old house where my boys would run through while playing or annoying each other. One of the many things would they do is fling rubber bands at each other from across the room. More than once, I found a rubber band in the paper tray blocking the paper from feeding correctly.

I’m currently in the middle of revisions for my fifth book, which I believe is now titled, ONE NIGHT SCANDAL. So on Saturday when I went to print out the book one more time, the printer wouldn’t feed the paper correctly. Hmm, the boys have seemingly outgrown the fine art of flinging of rubber bands at each other, so my first thought was the darn thing was broken.

I did my usually tech support thing, took the paper out, looked inside the paper feed and found nothing. I pulled out the can of air and sprayed it in the paper feed. Then, of course, I tried to print again. Once again, the paper jammed. More than a little frustrated, I did a little more in the name of research. I unplugged it and turned it upside down just in case something had fallen into it.

As I did this, I noticed something peculiar on my desk. I usually have three small “lucky” pigs sitting on my desk near my printer. Only today, instead of standing up and looking lucky, they were laying on their sides and horror of horrors—there were only two pigs!

Suddenly I remembered that my cat, Misha had been “playing” with them lately. And by playing, I mean picking them up in her mouth and carrying them to the floor. I glanced around and didn’t notice a pig on the floor. Where could little pig number three be?

I quickly grabbed a flashlight and peered inside my printer. What did I see? A little pink pig leg stuck down deep inside the feeder! One unlucky pig must have been picked up and dropped inside the printer by my cat! After a little pounding, the little pig came out. And yes, my printer started working again!!

So does anyone else have any funny technology stories? If not, how about a good pet story. I’m sure we all have one or two of those to share.