Printer Vigil

I'm at work. Why am I at work after 6:00 pm on a Friday night when I've been here since 8:30 this morning? Because I am sitting here with the printer like it's my sick friend, except maybe I mean my sick arch enemy, for I am not feeling particularly sympathetic or kind towards the printer. It's true that I'm asking it to do a lot - some 125 sheets of card stock - but it's done that before without freaking out like this. And this has to be done before tomorrow, and it shouldn't have taken this long, and, well, you can guess the rest.

Argh. It strikes me though, that sitting late with the printer, keeping vigil, has become some kind of weird rite of passage in our culture, kind of like a knight kneeling on the cold, cold stone all night (usually authors say "cold, HARD, stone" but this has always bothered me because, come on, obviously the stone is hard. I work at a rock museum and you can take it from me: 99% of the time stone is hard, and even when it's kind of soft, like gypsum or talc, it's still hard if you're kneeling on it. You should say cold, HARD mud, or cold, HARD feathers, but not stone.) Or maybe not. It's almost done! OMG! I think I might be able to leave this place tonight after all! Bye!