The Printer Conspiracy, Part One of Many (I'm sure)

I've had trouble with printers before, but this morning was singularly frustrating. By some weird twist of fate, I did not smash it to bits. I wanted to. Oh, did I want to. But it's a nice printer with a nice scanner and copier and I'd rather like to not have to shell out money for a new one.

That does not change the fact that this printer is evil. EVIL.

So, I've needed to print out blank sheet music for the piano for quite awhile now. I've been putting it off, mostly because other people were using the Printer of Doom or because I knew I could do it later.

Well, yesterday I finally got around to it, and...it didn't work. I click the stupid "Print" button on BlankSheetMusic.net (which has worked just fine for me in the past) many, many times before I finally realized that the printer just wasn't listening to me. So I went out looking for another good blank sheet music site. I tried with two others. No dice. I called a friend of mine who's very music-oriented. She didn't have any suggestions either. So I dropped it, hoping the site or my printer would decide to cooperate in the morning.

Nope. Again, clicked the "Print" button far too many times. Nothing. Nada. I tried from a different computer. Nope. I tried turning on the third computer (the one that, we think, is most directly hooked up to the printer) and printing from each of the others. (I don't dare print from that third computer. It doesn't like me.)

I've still got nothing.

After slapping the printer on the side a few times (not hard) and yelling at it a little bit, I turned off the other two computers and stomped downstairs. I went to the piano, probably to play something dark and militant, and what do I see on top but a sheet of blank sheet music?

At this point I could tear my hair out. I rummage over the top of the piano, but there's only the one sheet, and there's no way I can fit what I need to on sheet.

So, in a fit of total desperation, I went back upstairs, put the music on the copier glass, prayed, considered offering a sacrifice to the printer, decided that would be overkill, and hit "Start Copy."

One sheet of perfect blank sheet music came out of the printer with no trouble at all.

I set it for three more copies and hit "Start Copy" again. One after another, the printer spit them out at me, no questions asked.

And, just as I was going to wrap up this post, it made one of those random noises that printers will make after doing a job, only this one sounded kind of like a laugh.

My printer is laughing at me.

Bring on the sledgehammer.