It’s fairly late on a Friday night. I am up to my eyeballs in work and cursing at Excel, as usual. It occurred to me that I could double my productivity and print out all of the other documents I finished working on while saying very bad things about Bill Gates’ Mother. Until my black ink runs out.
Now, I’ve replaced my color cartridges plenty of times, with generic cartridges, ink refills, etc. Never had a problem. Until now. I take out a generic cartridge and put it in the printer. (Yes, I took the tape off the end, put it in correctly, etc.) The printer barely sniffs the offering of new ink and buzzes loudly and says, “Ink Empty Black”. This battle cry was a disheartening one indeed. Normally, it goes through a long cleaning process and then decides whether or not to accept the offering of ink. I repeat this process several times to no avail.
Maybe it’s the generic cartridge, I thought. I will not give up this easily! There are spreadsheets with my huge supply order that still need to be kitchen-sinked! So I take the brand name cartridge and open it up. Yes, the old cartridge is empty, the sponge is nearly white; the new cartridge is quite fresh, still virgin black. This is where I first acquired my battle wounds; I open the new cartridge and attempt to expel the ink into the syringe to fill the old one. Very little ink is in the reservoir, it’s all in the sponge. When I tried to get ink from the top, the ink comes out of the bottom, when I tried to get ink from the bottom, the ink comes out of the top. Finally, I resort to “milking the cartridge” which means plugging up the top hole and squeezing the ink out of the bottom. My hands are black and my heart is so very sad. I fill the syringe with the pools of ink from the counter, the cartridge, my hands, my dinner and the cat (no animals were harmed in the Battle Against the Printer of the Damned.)
The old cartridge begrudgingly accepts this pittance of ink, I seal it up and put it back into the printer. Once again, barely a sniff from the printer as it denies the ink. “Ink Empty Black.” Dammit! We are not giving up yet! We have heart; We have heart in spades!
I notice that my milking of the new cartridge has still left a bit of ink, and I interchange parts of the cartridges, milk the old cartridge and fill the fuller one. My hands will forever be black. I put it back in the printer, and I am thrice denied. Call tech support? No, this is waaay beyond that point, and I would most likely be told to buy only genuine Damned[sup]tm[/sup] products.
Maybe the ink jet is clogged? I take a q-tip with alcohol to everything, did I say everything, I meant eeeeeeeeeeverything! (Well, maybe not Bill Gates’ Mom.) Still…you guessed it.
I notice that the black cartridge holder has a metal part where the color ones do not. Perhaps this battle can be won with some simple tape. I tape over the devious metal object and try again. The printer seems interested! It goes through the cleaning cycle and once again, “Ink Empty Black”, aiiiiigh!
Observe its smug expression, it’s cold LCD screen, its fickle ink jets. I may have lost the battle, but dammit I will win the war even if I have to take your belligerent ass back to Staples!
