I've made a huge mistake

Every problem has a solution. Right, math majors? Maybe not. Basic trigonometry was enough to confuse me. Anyway, Jack and I have been having a small problem because our laptop is upstairs while our desktop and printer are downstairs. The laptop is all we really use these days, so anytime we wanted to print something we had to run downstairs to do it. Some of you may call that laziness, but we prefer to call it non feng shui-ness.

All of the running up and down the stairs was throwing off my positive energy and making me tired. Not to mention the fact that in order to print anything, we would first have to send the desired document from the laptop to the desktop. Sometimes the desktop (which is very old and can be a little cranky) did not like the format of the document that the laptop sent, so I would have to trek back upstairs and reformat the document and send again, then do the stairs again. Enough is enough, right?

Well, Christmas came early at Redwood Roofing this year. Santa brought us a new printer. But not just a printer. It's a fancy shmancy, bells and whistles, multifunction printer that faxes, scans and copies as well. Best of all, it's wireless. Which means that I can hit print on the laptop no matter where I am and our printer will get the job done. No more transferring files to the dinosaur downstairs.

I was sold on a printer as soon as I found out that we could download a (free) app that would allow us to print stuff from our phones! Thanks to Sullivans Office Supply for the best bang for our buck. And to one handsome pen salesman who sealed the deal, we'll just call him Mr. PP. He even offered to come help us set it up after hours at that! What service! (Visit them here. Or you can reach them at 662-323-5222. For all your office needs, from furniture to office equipment / supplies and more pens that your hands could desire! Ask for Philip and tell him Mrs. Featherbottom sent you.)


But no help necessary. We declined his kind offer because I'm smart enough to handle these kinds of things. And it is just a printer after all. Tonight seemed the perfect night, since Annie was tucked safely in bed, and Jack fell asleep with SB at 7:30. I was left to myself, and myself decided to set up our new printer. The instruction booklet was very detailed. Step One was "remove product from the box". I felt confident that I could complete the installation. And I did. Then I decided to go ahead and set up the wireless connection, which was only logical since that was the reason we had purchased this thing in the first place.

The instruction manual warned me that I would need our network name and password. I was pretty sure I knew that information. Then it warned me again that I would need the name, password and WEP key. In the event that we had multiple WEP keys, the printer company only needed the first WEP key.

Come again? WEP key? Is that some kind of code used by computer programmers to make normal people feel like idiots? If so, it worked. I turned to my best friend Google, who never makes me feel stupid when I have a question. It turns out there are some basic hacking skills you can learn and use to retrieve your WEP key. After a few online tutorials and several failed attempts, I managed to log in as an administrator to our wireless service's online system and retrieve a default WEP key, which, ironically, was "WEP key 1". Ugh.

Anyway, armed with my necessary information, I started the wireless set up process. It prompted me for my network name and password. I was ready with my WEP key. It never asked for it. WHAT????? I was pretty upset. Most of my evening has been spent honing my (nonexistent) hacking skills in order to retrieve some useless information that I didn't even need. What a waste. BUT at least the set up process seemed to be finished. I was ready for a test run.

I opened up Microsoft Word and the first document was "Jack's Messages." Perfect. I would print his message list and tape it to the front door. That way he would have his to-do list ready when he left in the morning, and I could make a note on there that I had printed it from our brand new printer that I had installed while he was sleeping. And please don't wake me up since I was up all night working on it.

I hit "print."

Then the realization suddenly set in.

It might have worked perfectly. I couldn't tell. There was no way of knowing.... Not without going back down the stairs.

All that time, all that money, all that EFFORT put into buying and installing a new printer with wireless capabilities so that I wouldn't have to run up and down the stairs anymore...and I had set it up downstairs.

So I went back down the stairs. There it was, shimmering like a most precious jade, Jack's message list, sitting primly on the output tray. It worked.

Now I just have to move it upstairs.

#what a waste