MELTDOWN

I have been called a technophobe in the past. Granted, it was by extreme geeks, so I didn't have to lend that opinion too much credence unless I choose to do so. And I am resistant to so aspects of technology, but I really do have good reason.

I don't have a Bluetooth. All right, I have one, but I didn't buy it and I don't actually use it. It would just be one more thing I'd have to charge and it's hard enough to charge my netbook and my cell phone.

I don't have Internet capabilities on my phone. I know I could, but it would be just one more thing I'd have to pay for and my Verizon bill is already larger than the Gross National Product of a few small countries.

I am not on MySpace or FaceBook. Or Twitter. Or Reddit. Or anything else similar, and I can tell you why. I'm horribly afraid, not of the technology, but of the addictive nature of such things. I'm afraid I would never do anything else. Then I would have to have a smart phone with Internet capabilities and the Bluetooth that would allow me to yap endlessly on the phone while updating my FB status....

We see where this is going.

So I'm not really a technophobe. And given that I work in health care, I'm all too often the most technosavvy person in the room. I---

Okay. Stop laughing. Seriously. Health care people are usually more comfortable with human beings that with computers. You're still laughing. Stop it.

Anyway.

I can handle some very basic fixes when my work computers or printers start acting up. I mean, come on. How hard is it to reboot? And I can figure out a few things with the wretched programs selected by the powers that be in most of my jobs, programs undoubtedly selected from the discount bin of computer programs. I'm not a complete bucket of rocks. That being said, imagine my chagrin and dismay when the label printer for my lab became possessed by Satan.

It all started last night, you see. Devil Printer decided it was out of labels, when it actually still had a few left. It decided this when [naturally] I had a) stat labs ordered on a patient with chest pain and b) someone on his way to pick up the samples and transport them to the main testing area. Conveniently, this occurred after 5 PM, when my coworker leaves for the day and I stay until the clinic is closed and all patients have been treated. Then, in the midst of trying to reload labels into a reluctant and resistant printer, more patients showed up. Itty bitty patients. Itty bitty, screaming, fighting patients. After a sufficiently long struggle, and a great deal of cursing, I got the labels reloaded...but the printing was all catawampus.

Yes, that is too a real word.

Now, you and I both know that it's way too late to make a long story short. But to shave off some of the excess, let me say that the IT tech who had the grave misfortune to be sent to repair the Beast was smart enough to lay hands on the printer and entreat the departure of demonic spirits.

We're keeping my offer of throwing the printer through a window on reserve.

Know this, my darling invisible friend. If I ever win the lottery, I will buy this printer from my place of employment, I will take it out into a field and I will beat it with a sledgehammer until it is dust.

Dust.