This week I had to buy a new printer for my wife’s clinic as her old one bit the dust.

I’m not particularly upset about the loss of this printer. If we’re being completely honest, her staff tends to beat printers to death. It was repeatedly abused living in the back of an RV that regularly drove over bumpy roads. This is basically a ticking time bomb for printers. When they’re getting abused regularly, placed on inclines and doing shit that most household printers weren’t made for, then you’re probably going to see a high printer mortality rate.

Anyway, let me tell you what I had to do with this new printer.

On getting the damn thing to the clinic, I realized most modern printer companies package their products in a cardboard and plastic version of Fort Knox. There were pieces of cardboard placed in spots where no person would normally expect to find cardboard. And the stickers! For fuck’s sake, I saw more blue stickers taping over the glass on the scanner bed than anyone would ever think necessary to secure anything!

It is also almost impossible to take new printers out of a box without having a large area in which to perform said unboxing. This doesn’t sound like a big deal until you’re forced to do so in a space the size of about two feet. My wife’s clinic works out of a very small RV so space is limited. I didn’t have enough space to spread all the cardboard and plastic dividers everywhere so most of it had to be chucked outside.

At a rescue for dogs. Is that not a problem for you, printer companies? You want me to throw your refuse on the ground at a rescue for dogs?

Just wait. It gets substantially worse. Once I plugged the damn printer in, I found out the printer cable I’ve used for the last couple of years is no longer the appropriate size. Yes, some genius thought recently the best way to screw me out of more money was to make the USB printer cable slot on printers about an eighth of an inch smaller. Now my printer cable won’t work and I have to spend even more money to make sure someone can print in a pinch.

Not to worry though! The new printer was compatible with wireless printing! Which means that I had to scan a QR code on the printer to download software to my phone, which would then be used to finish the installation of said printer.

Unfortunately I was in a location where there was no dedicated wireless network, so I had to use that previously mentioned phone to work as a mobile hotspot to download said software to the printer.

That couldn’t recognize my phone as a mobile hotspot for internet.

Next came printing an alignment page. This is pretty standard for printers and stupid. Why do we need to align cartridges every time we install them? It’s not like we’re regularly beating the ink cartridge slots with a baseball bat.

Well some people might. But I don’t judge.

Anyway, after the alignment printing page came out, one has to scan that page in the scanner bed to complete the alignment. Except for one small detail: The scanner bed door slot is right next to the slot that opens the ink cartridge replacement door. Which means that if you’re not careful—or dealing with an environment where puppies are barking incessantly—you’re going to open both at the same time. Which means that you have to start the alignment process over from the beginning.

And that’s not all, friends! After all that, it’s time to set the date, time and time zone on your printer! WHY THE GODDAMN DOES MY PRINTER NEED A DATE AND TIME SETTING? WHY CAN’T I JUST PLUG THE FUCKING THING IN AND PRINT STUFF? WHY DOES INSTALLATION TAKE A GODDAMN HOUR?

I promptly took a baseball bat to the offending object.

Dear printer makers: Your product is disposable. Don’t make it a holiday to install a new one.

I want to plug shit in and it works. Not deal with all of your extraneous bullshit.

And I don’t want to install another goddamn app on my phone just to print.

That’s all for now. I’m going to go take a Valium and sit in a nice rubber room for a bit.

See y’all next time!