FAQ: Changing the Toner in the Office Copier

Q: OK, OK. Toner’s out. Um, OK … what do I do?

A: Start by opening the front panel of the copier that contains the toner. This is highlighted on the screen of the toner. The panel is also marked “TONER.”

Q: You mean here?

A: No. It’s the panel marked “TONER.”

Q: Got it. I think.

A: Pull out the cyan toner. It’s marked with the big “C.”

Q: Wait, what? What is “cyan”?

A: Blue.

Q: Then why not just call it “blue”?

A: … Pull the toner out of the copier.

Q: Ohh, I don’t want to get ink on me! I’m calling IT.

A: You don’t need to call IT. Just pull out the toner. It comes right out.

You won’t get ink on you.

Q: OK, here goes … Got it! It came right out!

A: Next, get a new canister of cyan toner. It’s in the cabinet to your left.

Q: Right here?

A: No, your left. The cabinet is labeled “TONER.”

Q: Got it. “Cyan” toner. Now what?

A: Remove the cap from the end of the toner. It’s labeled “REMOVE THIS END” and there’s an arrow on it.

Q: Oh, I don’t know. I’m not sure about this. I don’t want to get ink on me. I’m calling IT.

A: You don’t need IT. You can do this.

Q: I’m calling IT. I don’t want to break the toner.

A: Don’t call IT. They’re busy. Just pull off the cap. You won’t break it.

Q: OK, here goes nothing … The cap came right off! Just like you said!

A: Insert the toner into the copier. The canister is shaped so that there is only one way to insert it.

Q: But how do I know I’m inserting it right? Is there a diagram? I don’t want to break the copier.

A: You don’t need a diagram. There’s only one way the toner can physically fit in the copier.

Q: I’m calling IT.

A: … Just. Insert it.

Q: It fits! Hallelujah!

A: Now close the panel on the copier.

Q: Just … close it? Is there any special way I should be closing it?

A: Given the laws of physics, there is one way it will close. Swing the door on its hinges.

Q: OK, here goes … OK. It’s closed. Now what do I do?

A: Now you can print or copy again. Just try not to set the office on fire.

Back to Whatever

There’s just a bare hint of a smile on our son’s face in the photo I took in front of our house this morning before the first day of school. He did not want to go back. A few minutes earlier, he told me why he didn’t want to go back, putting on a short one-act play in the kitchen that expressed his (just slightly exaggerated) misgivings about returning to school. He does well and doesn’t have any discipline problems but just doesn’t want to be there.

I know how he feels. I can’t tease or scold him too much because I never wanted to go back to school either. I got good grades and didn’t have any real problems but I always looked at going back to school like adults look at going back to work: You’d still rather be on vacation.

I still love summer. Back then, we’d be outside all day with our friends. My brother and I would be at the pool every day. I swam so much that my hair would start to turn blond with the chlorine, and I had a deep tan. We would go on vacation every year and there would be all sorts of fun things going on.

I remember hearing adults saying things like, “You’re glad to go back,” in what may have been just a bit of projection. I was supposed to want to leave the pool and dusk-to-dawn running around to sit in a classroom and get drilled by a nun about fractions? What are you, drunk?

It was different after I turned 16 and started working. By the time I was in college, I would work 40 hours a week all summer and during breaks, as well as part-time during the school year. But I still always cherished my summers and the relative freedom they brought. Today, I don’t think that attitude has affected me negatively. I love to learn new things today and if I’m awake, I’m reading.

So I never had any warm memories about the smell of freshly sharpened pencils or anything like that. I used to greet a new school year with a sigh like my son does. It was OK but I would rather have been doing something else. I’ll always encourage him to like school, of course, and I won’t let any bad attitude wear off on him, but I can’t revise history and pretend like I was any more enthused.

Thunderclouds

The storm brewing outside my office window never looks more beautiful or threatening than when it has an enemy. In an ignorant corner of the sky, the sun still sizzles, throwing into relief a sky some terrifying shade between blue and black.

It is the chiaroscuro cliché that the brightest light births the darkest shadow.

So I watch as the sky quarrels, lightning aggressively stabbing the ground with a backdrop of billowing dread, while the sun passively resists. Until, overcome by the western front, the sun disappears, taking the light out of the thunderclouds, which devolve into an unbroken slate of gray as blah as the dress pants I wear stuck in this office.

Nuclear Winter

The ancient date is an intersection. I am sure of this because of the meticulous records of weathermen and government. About the time we heard thundersnow, blinded in that driveway down which no cars could travel, the Joint Chiefs told Reagan they could protect, not avenge, America from nuclear fire. The idea, the hopes were so high, they were in orbit over our country, a network in the stars to shoot down the missiles and prevent the war.

The president may have been pondering as the first flakes fell over the capital while to the north, I saw a snowmobile carom down Keighler Avenue as if the apocalypse had already fallen and the cars we depended upon were suddenly useless as an appendix.

We built snow forts the next day after the blizzard finally relented, walls of white taller than we had imagined were possible, defending our childhoods against nameless threats we knew lurked. Meanwhile, our parents broke down the frozen battlements just so their world could function.

About then, perhaps the walls closed in and grew taller in Reagan’s mind, the paradox between seeing the madness of Mutually Assured Destruction and selling the Evil Empire and Star Wars like an actor pitching soap.

It is another convenient juxtaposition, all things coming together like weather fronts. It was before the 1980s, the true ‘80s, my ‘80s, really began. It all happened just before Michael Jackson moonwalked over luminous floor tiles, before Soviet fire destroyed its target, black box and bodies falling far from Seoul.

It happened when we were just young enough not to see what danger, true danger, lurked under all the world’s beds.

Yikes! Just 70 Shopping Days Until Halloween

You can’t even imagine my relief that the seasonal aisles of the supermarkets are filled with Halloween candy in August. You might think it’s too early for this and that people do not need 70-some days to buy candy for trick-or-treaters.

But you’d be seriously underestimating the sheer awesome scope of my Halloween candy needs. Untold numbers of children flock from around the country to get Hershey, Mars and Nestle products from our house, so we really need to stock up. Just look at the list of candy we require:

20 bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

10 bags of Snickers

18 bags of Hershey’s Miniatures

15 bags of M&Ms

8 bags of Caramel M&Ms

16 bags of Reese’s Pieces

14 bags of Kit Kats

16 bags of Milky Ways

13 bags of Nestle Crunch

8 bags of Good and Plenty

6 bags of Hot Tamales

12 bags of Hershey Kisses

5 bags of Baby Ruths

7 bags of Payday

4 bags of Red Hots

9 bags of Butterfingers

10 bags of Rolos

1 bag of candy corn

Yikes! That’s why I really need two-plus months to shop for candy. As summer ends, I’m going to raid every store in the area for candy. Every Walgreen’s, CVS, Shoprite, Target, Acme, Wawa and Rite Aid will be stripped bare. I will stalk the stores until they restock.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go. I got a hot tip on some Kit Kats at a CVS in Berks County.

Things to Remember 2019

Hey, bitches. Here are some (belated) highlights from our (short) week at Ocean View:

Sitting around a deck talking and drinking and laughing

“Victor Should Have Been a Jazz Musician” and the saxophone of intrigue

Dinner at the Big Chill and the sunset song

Shore Whore

The beach at the Indian River Inlet

A gospel serenade every morning

Disco biscuits in the kitchen

Several bunk beds in a tiny bedroom

“Raspberry Sorbet”

BBQ

Ravioli

Chicken and rice

Eggs and bacon

The Expose medley

Snakes and Ladders

“Buffalo (Cocaine) Stance”

A chicken clucking in the distance

Day drinking on the beach

A Trump 2020 flag on a flagpole reserved for the American flag

Dentist office music on the beach

International Male and Undergear catalogues showing the best thongs and Cavarriccis from 30 years ago

Various types of beer

Multiple trips to Giant

Driving around trying to find a beach

Continued friendship

Jazz!

Thanks for another great year in a long, long line of great years at the beach!

Can you pull that?

Yeah, that’s not a flower or a tree. That’s a weed. Please pull it. I walk around the neighborhood and see these huge weeds sticking out of your property and you don’t know how badly I want to pull them.

See how the leaves are all oval with pointy ends and they all evenly spaced like a row of teeth? That means it’s a weed. It’s not some miracle tree growing right up next to your house that will one day be beautiful. It will just become a bigger weed. It’s not a flower that’s waiting for the end of summer to explode in all its glory. It will never flower.

Sometimes people let weeds grow and they become trees, but they are still weeds. I don’t know if I’d advise someone to pull a tree-sized weed, since it may predate the current owners, but ideally, you don’t want it to get to that point. You want to pull the weed when it’s small.

In our neighborhood, there are actual bushes and shrubs with huge weeds growing out of them. These are not like “bonus” bushes or weeds growing out. They are weeds and you should pull them. A lot of the yards have these huge rocks on them and I think they look nice, but then there will be a huge weed-tree next to it and the effect is ruined.

I know how annoying it is to keep up with weeds. For months every year, it’s a struggle at our property. (We get these very invasive weeds that only come up on one side of our garden. They’re not long and spindly but low and almost plant-like. I hate them and don’t know how to eradicate them. They kill all my perennials.) We’re not perfect and I can never keep it clean of weeds at all times. I just try to stay on top of it so we don’t get anything big enough to offer shade.

I really do hate weeding but I hate weeds more and those two things seesaw back and forth. And with that, I’ve just opened an invitation for people to drive by my house and criticize.