Rant #2,334: The Gift

A long-running saga in my family seems to have reached its conclusion.

You don't know how happy I am that it has finally ended.

It involves a computer printer.

Any computer printer.

And it involves my mother's computer.

This began a few years ago, when I finally got my mother interested in computing.

It was a long time coming, but my mother has always been hot on new things--heck, she was the one who bought my sister and I our Beatles records way back in 1964--and she wanted to learn the new way to look for things and to socialize, so it was inevitable that she would get interested in computing.

And her age--then in her late 70s--wasn't going to stop her, it invigorated her--she wanted to learn about the computer, and she wanted to learn NOW.

I went out, got her a simple, relatively inexpensive computer--I bought it on Black Friday, as I remember, at Radio Shack--and she was off to the races.

Now into her third or fourth computer--I forget which one--she also has a tablet computer, but has not yet jumped on the telephone cellphone bandwagon, only having a flip phone.

But let me digress.

Now that she had a computer, she wanted to print things off the Internet, mainly restaurant and store coupons and certain articles that intrigued her, but without a printer, she couldn't do that, usually relying on me to print these things out on my computer.

(And it took her awhile to understand how to forward emails to me, which made it even more frustrating to her.)

So, of course, she needed a printer, but with my limited knowledge of computers, to be honest with you, every printer that we got her never worked correctly, and was useless.

I even tried to hook up some old printers that I had once used that I still had, but to no avail. These printers simply would not work with the computer she was using at the time.

Well, finally this year, she asked me to get her a printer for her birthday. When someone is 88 years old and asks for something, you basically do it, even though you have some trepidation based on past experiences.

So yes, I went out and got her an inexpensive printer (the one you see in the photo above), and yes, I tried to hook it up this past weekend ... again to no avail.

I spent a good hour trying to figure this out, but again, I failed.

I have hooked up other printers--to all the computers that I have had--with nary a problem.

But for some reason, I have never been successful in the least hooking up a printer to any computer my mother has ever had.

I told her that this time we would try to do things a bit differently. There must be something that I was doing incorrectly, something that I was missing, even though I responded to all the prompts on the computer screen while trying to hook up the printer.

"You will have to get in a professional," I told her. "I simply cannot do this, and I want you to be able to use this printer."

I actually had nightmares about this printer on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Even while sleeping, I was trying to figure out what I did wrong, or at least did not do right.

Yes, I was dreaming about this printer. I guess there are worse things you can dream about, but dreaming about a printer, in my mind, is not healthy.

Anyway, my mother called a professional in to try to fix this thing, and finally, on Monday afternoon, it was successfully hooked up.

My mother did not find out what I did wrong, but she did say that it took the technician upwards of 45 minutes for even him to figure out this thing.

I suspect it had to do with obtaining the proper printer drivers so this thing could work, but again, I followed all the prompts myself, and doing so, you would think that the thing would work.

Maybe something else was needed; at this point, I really don't know and I really don't care.

She has her printer, and it hopefully will work to her satisfaction.

My mother has not yet printed anything, but she says she wants to do so when I am home ... as if I can help her! I couldn't even hook the thing up right!

But when that day comes, and the paper goes into the printer, and it comes out perfectly, the long-time saga of the printer will finally be over.

I mean, dreaming of printers is not normal.

I would rather dream about ... well, I will leave that to your imagination.