My coworker's printer prompt almost made me walk out of our writing workshop last week

4 comments

4 Comments

During my freshman year finals, the library's old dot matrix printer jammed right as I was printing my last essay. The sound was like a robot choking, and this line of perforated paper just kept looping out while everyone stared. I had to manually tear each page and hand in a stack that looked chewed by a mechanical dog.

the_gavin1mo ago

Old gear always fails at the worst possible time.

rose_reed16d ago

Yeah, that line about the paper looking chewed by a mechanical dog really got me... It's not just printers. It's like the universe has a rule where anything old waits for the most important moment to break. My car makes that weird noise only when I'm already late. @bailey.shane is right those old printers were built tough, but that just means they save all their one big failure for when you really need them. It's the law of old things... they work fine until the exact second you're depending on them.

bailey.shane1mo ago

That "robot choking" sound is right, but dot matrix jams usually come from tractor feed slips, not paper looping out. @the_gavin is correct about old gear failing, but those printers were tough.