HELP! My Printer Has a Poltergeist!

WARNING: The story you are about to read is true. Only the (brand) names were changed to protect the innocent.…

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I think my printer is haunted.

Now I’ll admit, I’m not exactly tech savvy. I just pretend to speak Geek because I once had a freelance assignment, in which I was forced to write about API’s, DPI’s, and other mind-numbing acronyms that end in “PI.”

My former, high-tech client took great delight in lampooning my cell phone. Clearly, he failed to understand that thieves LAUGH at 11-year-old Androids. (They’re theft-proof.) 

But I digress.

My printer is haunted!

Never, EVER Trust New Tech

To fully appreciate the magnitude of this trauma, you need to understand that “The Fiend” went rogue only 10 weeks after I spent a ridiculous amount of money on it.

No matter what the bozos in Tech Support told me to do, my printer refused to cough up Chapter Five of my work-in-progress (WIP.)

Then the Head Tech Bozo (who was reading from a script) claimed that my computer cable must be interfering with the natural order of his printer.  Nevermind that I’d already tried two computer cables, thereby proving that cables weren’t the issue. He INSISTED that all the cables that I could possibly purchase in my hometown were problematical, and that he must mail my replacement to Austin. 

So I waited. And I waited.

(Was my cable being shipped by way of NEPTUNE?)

Fast Forward Three Weeks…

It was Thursday night. I was sitting alone in my living room, minding my own business, and binge-watching HDs of my favorite paranormal TV series (Vampire Diaries).

Suddenly, my freaked-out cat came tearing down the hall. Her jade-colored eyes were as big as kiwis.

‘Uh-oh,’ I thought. ‘What did the little stinker do this time?’

And then I heard it: the insidious clackety-clack, clackety-clack.

Fearing the worst — a bug invasion —- I did what any able-bodied Texas female would do:  I grabbed a can of Raid and a baseball bat.

(Hey, roaches are as big as hummingbirds in Texas. I kid you not!)

As my ferocious watch-cat cowered under the couch, I crept valiantly through the darkness and the dust bunnies, following that mysterious clackety-clacking down the hall, through the living room, toward the office where I write my books.

As I paused on the threshold, the shrieks of dying werewolves blaring from my TV, all kinds of horrific visions assailed my brain. I imagined that a giant wood roach was gnawing on my desk — or worse, that it was defecating on the only printed copy of my WIP.  And that really ticked me off.

Prepared to defend my precious manuscript, I flipped on the light.

My Flesh Started Prickling…

Imagine my shock. On my desk sat Old Faithful, my computer, completely shut down and switched off. But my freaky printer had turned itself on and was spewing out Chapter 5.

(The Twilight Zone Theme started playing in my head.)

‘Well, whaddaya know?’ I thought. ‘Maybe that useless piece of junk isn’t so useless after all.’

So I printed a photo of my favorite, gorgeous vampire-actor (just to test The Fiend, of course), grabbed a pint of cookies-‘n-cream from the freezer (to soothe the cat, silly), and returned to my living room to watch Elijah get staked for the umpteenth time on Vampire Diaries.

(I mean, honestly. How STUPID can a 1,000 year-old-vampire be?)

Oopsie! Looks like I digressed again…

I Swear, I am NOT Making This Stuff Up!

Fast forward four more weeks. During this period of my (otherwise uneventful) writer’s life, I struck a truce with my printer — which I dubbed HAL. I discovered that if I rebooted him EVERY SINGLE TIME I wanted to print a document, HAL would spit one out. And it was usually the document I wanted.

Then came SATURDAY. It dawned gray and rainy like the harbinger of doom in some low-budget horror movie.

I sat alone in my home office. I was minding my own business (again) and writing the next chapter in my WIP. HAL loomed at my elbow. His green light glowed to indicate he was on.

(All that cheerful greenness was the ruse of a psychotic processor. You know that.)

Suddenly, without warning, HAL spit out something metallic. It went speeding across the room, ricocheted off a lamp (nearly decapitating me), then buried itself in the ever-frolicking, ever propagating, army of dust bunnies under my desk.

Next, HAL made a horrific grinding noise, crumpled sideways, and expired.

HAL has refused to resuscitate ever since. (And I really don’t think a jury of my writing peers would convict me for introducing HAL to my baseball bat.)

Yep. I’m pretty sure my printer has a poltergeist.

Does anyone know a cheap exorcist?