envelopes, a new best friend, overdue adult beverage, a trick on Curly

I attempted to print envelopes Saturday night despite my growing awareness that everything this season is just going to take me LONGER than necessary.

I congratulated my '19-self for being so stinking clever. I saved the mail merge file with instructions:  ADDRESSES 2019 JUST ADD RECEIPIENT LIST FROM COMPUTER FINISH AND SEND. Country Mouse (reference from last post, in case you are confused) was acting all techie and shit.  

My printer wouldn't print. It finally printed 6 of 215 envelopes after hours of me trying to coax it to do its job. Then it kept telling me:  'out of paper.' Telling the computer I was printing on envelope-sized paper wasn't enough. The sensitive printer insisted I change the settings on the actual printer. Still wouldn't work. What. The. Hell. Naughty words launched from my mouth faster than you could say this is almost as bad as buying a phone at Walmart. 

Coach tried to help. He craned his neck to look in the printer. Um, there he found not one BUT TWO PENS in the spot where the paper feeds. Oops. We unplugged. Cleaned nozzles. Realigned. Begged. Cussed (just me, not Coach). Nothing. I called stores, tried to find someone who could help, asked about inventory. The little old lady who fixed it a few months ago in the shop out of her garage answered her phone at 8 pm on a Saturday night and tried to talk me down. 

It would print nothing. Normal paper or envelopes. Guessing using it as pen storage was unwise. 

Tank:  Let's all take a stack and write the addresses on the envelopes. 

That would be confusing - who is writing which ones. Plus I sometimes make last minute adjustments, and hello poor penmanship.  DON'T WRITE ON THAT!  (that's our family's favorite all time clip. It's like 10 seconds) Besides, the mail merge WORKED. A small Christmas miracle. It'd kill me to not use it. 

I checked printer inventory online at area stores. It was Saturday night, places were closed. Then a Target  (not our nearby Target, of course) claimed to have one. I called. They had two. I got ready to leave. Coach had retreated to the family room to watch football with Ed and Tank. He had that WHO-DID-I-MARRY expression on his face. 

Ed:  CAN I ASK WHY THIS NEEDS TO BE DONE TONIGHT?

Well, sure you can ask Ed, but since you're a man I don't suppose you know what it means to make a list during the holiday season and to hope to wake up without the same shit on that list. My house doesn't have ONE SINGLE decoration up yet. Unless you count lights outside that look slightly better than the way Coach usually does them. (And we all rejoiced).

As a general rule in a printer emergency one should only shop for a new device at a store that sells alcohol. Skip Best Buy. I grabbed a Brother printer vs the Epson that I already have, and hit the booze isle. I bought me some Mike's Hard Lemonade and Ed/Coach some beer. I cannot remember when I last drank an alcoholic beverage. What is with that? It's a flipping pandemic, woman. This is about survival. Bottoms up. 

My cart.

I headed to the store at 8:20 pm. 45 minutes later I was home and a wilted Coach and a perky Mom-bought-me-beer Ed were setting it up. I did the self-checkout and the dang printer still had an alarm on it when I got home. When we cut the alarm off the box, the thing started beeping like crazy. No, we did NOT sneak over and leave it on Mary Ann's front porch - tempting as that was. Instead, Ed took it out on the front porch and beat the snot out of it.

Result of Ed's smashing. Coach in
background reading instructions. 
Someone needs to be responsible.

"Hey neighbors! Nothing to see here. Just appears that we stole something, but I swear we didn't."

Coach moaned that this was going to take forever to setup, but then a guy in the football game, they were taking breaks to go watch, took an opponent's shoe and chucked it 20 yards down the field. I always say, there's nothing like an unprecedented football shoe tossing to keep the I'M-AFRAID-OF-MY-CRAZY-WIFE-WHO-MIGHT-THROW-OUR-PRINTER-OUT-THE-FRONT-WINDOW mood from getting too heavy. 

They enjoyed their beers and the setup really didn't take that long, plus they enjoyed grilling me about how I got a printer out of a store while it was still wearing an alarm. It was only $153, was an alarm necessary? I have the receipt to prove I bought it, in case you're wondering. 

I considered using my new purchase and returning it the next day, but I LOVE IT. My new best friend. My envelopes were printed by 10:30 pm. I knew something was going to run amuck when I bought my Epson printer a few years ago and specifically selected the one with print cartridges that never run out. That ended well. Print cartridges are still plenty full. Score one for Epson's marketing team.  

Curly and Reggie were at their friends' house for the tale end of the PRINT-MY-ENVLOPES-OR-DIE-TRYING drama. When they got home, I was in the study typing away on my blog and occasionally filling the paper tray with more envelopes. I felt all warm and delighted with my Brother printer, running smooth as silk. Guzzling my first Mike's in FOREVER was not hurting. 

The smashed up alarm was in the kitchen. Curly asked what it was. Coach told a tall tale.

Coach in a loud whisper:  Well Mommy was so mad that her printer broke (which Curly already witnessed) that she went to Staples and stole a printer. She was like "it isn't right that my printer broke, so I deserve a new one."

From my spot in the study I decided to play along. 

I conjured up my recently utilized angry voice and shouted:  Coach, I wasn't going to tell Curly that. WHY'D YOU TELL HER? Just forget Daddy told you, Curly. My damn printer shouldn't have broken. 

Coach burst out laughing a minute later. He said Curly's face was all kinds of horrified. Even Mini fell for it, briefly. 

Glass of Mike's hard, black cherry. 

Nothing like a little alcohol and the hum of a new printer to lead to bad parental choices. Anyone else struggle with mail merges and printers? They switch off for me:  mail merge works, printer sucks. Next year I'll lead with Mike's. Maybe I should save THAT message in my document title.