A few days ago my printer started acting up, and, of course, being a computer cognoscente, I don’t have a clue what to do about it. Whenever I try to print something, a bell goes off and a box pops up, telling me I have to send something first to One Note before I can use my HP printer, which is now three or four years old. Not knowing what or where One Note is, this problem is beyond my pay grade and will be unresolved no doubt until one of the kids or kids-in-law or grandkids fixes it. Or I buy a new printer.
There is also something funny going on with our voice mail machine. We’ve erased all the old messages, but if someone leaves a new one and we need to replay it, the machine rewinds to the top. We then hear: “No new messages. Old messages played back. Thursday, 8:07 p.m. Beep. Monday, 9:44 a.m. Beep. Friday, 3:16 p.m. Beep” and on and on before we can rehear the new message. I suppose we have the owners’ manual somewhere. If it’s like most manuals, it won’t answer our questions. I’m thinking of picking up the machine and giving it a good shaking to see if that helps.
I’d like to do that to Jamie Dimon, the main man at JPMorgan Chase, too. Chase is our bank, and it’s also where the guy across the street from us has his money. The neighbor stopped me the other day to “joke” about our retirement accounts. I started telling him about sending an e-mail to a money manager at Chase the last time our funds took a big hit. It wasn’t until hours later that I realized why the neighbor cut me off mid-way through my story. He already knew about it. He read it in my book – “Did I Really Change My Underwear Every Day?” Duh. I’ve forgotten what’s in my own book and he hasn’t? That can’t be good, can it?
And now the mystery of the month. Before breakfast on Mother’s Day, I headed out to get a paper, a coffee, a large fruit salad and four donuts. While I was making my rounds, Irene was frying bacon. We had breakfast on the deck, the first time this season. It was relaxing and enjoyable. We each had two pieces of bacon, a dish of fruit salad and one donut. Our son, Jack, stopped by with a Mother’s Day plant for Irene and had a donut.
For breakfast the following day, we planned to have cereal and to split that fourth donut. What fourth donut? It was nowhere to be found. It was an old-fashioned cake donut that came in a paper bag from Dunkin’ Donuts. To make sure it stayed fresh, one of us put the paper bag inside a plastic one. Some good that did us.
Did someone slip in during the night and steal the donut? Doubtful. Did Irene or I eat it and not remember doing so? Not impossible but I hope not.
It’s a complete mystery. This is not going to start happening to our bourbon supplies is it? One night we’ll look and there will be two thirds of a bottle left, and the next night the bottle’s gone? Would the ADT home security people laugh if I called and said we decided to sign up for their service because someone’s been stealing our donuts?
The truth is neither Irene nor I needs another donut. Ever. But what the hell happened to that last one?
(Posted May 17, 2012)
Amazingly, I was able to solve the printer problem by myself. After looking at a Windows Help site, I uninstalled and re-installed the printer. There has been no change in the status of the voice mail machine.