2009: A Technology Oddity

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier. Frankly, it gives me a massive headache.

I admit I am a bit technologically-challenged. I got a new cell phone last fall and it still takes me two minutes to find a picture on it. My son and daughter can do this in less than ten seconds. I don't know how to download a photo on the computer. I did a happy dance when I figured out how to use the DVR function on the television.

My real challenge is when something malfunctions. I have a printer that I use to print out photos for scrapbooking. Suddenly, every photo it spits out looks like there is a two-year-old inside it filling in lines with a set of basic-color crayons.

I have run an ink flow check. I have run a paper check. I have run a check on the program settings. I have run an FBI background check. My photos are still coming out looking like a page from a Dr. Suess book.

I have spent probably three hours online with the Epson troubleshooting website. I have wasted numerous sheets of paper, loads of ink, and hours of time.

Perhaps it is time to move on to the next diagnostic step:

1. Disconnect power cord
2. Disconnect printer cable from computer
3. Chuck printer out of window into path of an oncoming semi-truck

I am starting to miss the days when I dropped off a roll of film at the drug store and it magically appeared as pictures a few days later. Perhaps many would accuse me of living in the "stone age" for not enthusiastically embracing technology. Frankly, I would rather wrestle a sabre-tooth tiger with nothing but a wooden club to defend myself than spend one more minute psychoanalyzing a photo printer.

Gotta go. I hear a semi-truck approaching.