I haven’t had a working printer for a long time. I bought one many years ago, and after a short while it stopped working. My ex-husband tried to fix it – he’d never had any trouble with printers – and he couldn’t make it work, either. So any time I wanted something printed, I just had him do it at his place. It didn’t happen often, and it seemed to work out.

Now that he’s gone, I decided that because his printer is very old and somewhat of a problem I’d get a new one. They’re not expensive, and surely there have been improvements in the many years since I got mine. And so I bought one and tried to set it up.

Hours later I was still stymied. It would not – simply would not – connect to the Wifi. I have free access to the Geek Squad, and so I tried to make an appointment. The page I was directed to online would only let me change an already-existing appointment; it would not let me make one. So I called the handy dandy phone number and got an AI voice. She (it was definitely a she) kept directing me to a Geek Squad in a store an hour away, despite the fact that there is one about ten minutes away.

Why? Why? In my frustration, I said something like, “this is ridiculous; why won’t you take me to the right store?” She replied, “I can understand your frustration,” to which I replied, “No you CAN’T; you’re not even a person!” She answered, “I know I’m not human, but I’m doing the best I can.”

I asked to speak with a human, and indeed was connected to one somewhere in Asia. This person ultimately informed me that the Geek Squad cannot help set up printers because connecting to the Wifi in the store wouldn’t help; it has to be your own Wifi, which necessitates a house call.

How much does a house call cost? One hundred and twenty-five dollars. How much did the printer cost? Sixty-nine dollars.

I returned it.

Then I read that Staples will allow you to print a page off the internet. So I went there, and was directed to a computer attached to a printer. So far, so good. But the very first thing the computer asked me to do was to insert my credit card, for a charge of forty-nine cents a minute. This task could easily take me a half-hour to figure out. Did I want to pay fifteen dollars to print two pages? No.

Next I’m going to try the library.