The Trouble With Printers...

The Trouble With Printers and Mothers, a short one act play inspired by the trials and tribulations of a mother, a daughter, and a hell bent printer.

Takes place in cool unused room in a house in Hawai'i. Breezy in the humid afternoon.

Me sitting at computer scanning photo

mother sitting on bed, odd reversal of mother and daughter roles

me: " So do you want to print it on regular paper or do you have photo paper?"

mom: "Oh I think have the shiny paper..." runs off to find it

meanwhile the picture has scanned and I keep trying to rotate it so it will come out at a normal angle.

Excited mother returns with a huge folio of shiny kodak photo paper.

mom: "ok here it is!" starts putting paper on printer

me:" Wait,I think we have to find the special opening, maybe there's a way to put the paper in so that it knows it is for a photo"

mom:"It IS paper,why does it matter?"

me: "Well ok,let's try it your way and see what happens"

Puts photo paper in regular tray. Chooses icon to print photo.

mom: "WAIT, what size is the paper? I think you have to put that in too" (I am doing this already,flustered chicken mama)

Me,choosing correct measurements and all that blah blah,"ok it's printing"

We both anxiously watch as the printer transforms into a baby elephant having a nervous breakdown. Loud lurches,jolts, and mechanical noises reminiscent of the baby elephant's jaws attacking a mound of bamboo fill the room.

Meanwhile the photo paper is on the wrong tray. The printer tries to eat the photo paper, goes through some kind of digestion problem,stops,tries to eat it again,then finally makes the sound we are all familiar with.

mom: "I think something's wrong.."

me:" I think it had a heart attack" (laughter)

I look for correct tray for paper while the printer icon angrily shoots us a message that it is not on the right tray and what the hell is wrong with us. Pauses printer.

After finding correct tray, inserting paper in supposedly correct way, we wait again,our hands on our hearts.

Baby elephant printer gets to work again. The room is filled with the familiar jolts, rumblings, and other noises which are reminiscent of incontinent digestion symptoms.

But this time the photo is only a quarter printed,and on the wrong side.

me: "I HATE technology,it makes your life a lot harder."

mom: "Maybe if we put the paper the other way,it will print out."

Puts paper in right side up. Prints again.

We both stare at the photo,which has given a family picture an unusual orange hue to my sister's skin.

me:"How many more do you want?"

mom: "Well maybe we should just use the regular paper after all." At this absurdly simple resolution I am close to taking a hammer to the baby elephant aka printer and giving it a lesson in proper digestion.

So we print out five copies of four photos all on regular paper. The shiny photo paper,calm and glossy as a lake, is returned to my mother's cabinet of things she doesn't use but has bought anyway for some reason.

The End.