The Feelings of Machines

Last April I bought a new printer.  It’s more than a printer, though. It’s a fax, copier, and scanner too, and it would probably wash the dishes if I knew how to operate its controls properly.  The printer was working beautifully when we went to Jerusalem, but when we came back it refused to operate.  It wouldn’t even apologize by telling me, for example, that it wasn’t connected or that I had not yet indicated it as the default printer.  No, it greeted me with frosty silence. 

In an effort to figure out the problem I asked it to print out a test page.  It did so beautifully, but when I asked it to print out something I had written, it refused.  If it had a tongue, it would have stuck it out at me.  So I brought out my small traveling printer, which I had just put away, and used that instead.  I placed it on top of the recalcitrant printer.  True, it printed much more slowly, but it obeyed me.

From time to time, I’d ask my large printer to operate, but without success.  I almost resigned myself to asking our computer technician to make a house call, when a few days later, I tried once more.  This time the large printer not only produced what I had just asked it to print but also all the other jobs that I had sent to it in an effort to make it work.

Why had it stopped working and why did it start working again?  The simplest explanation is that I had hurt its feelings by not saying goodbye when we left for Jerusalem and by not even sending it a card while we were away.  So it sulked when we returned.   It began working again after figuring that it had punished me sufficiently.  Also, it may have understood that if a pipsqueak printer could replace it, its days on my desk were limited.  But these are just theories.  Until a better explanation can be offered, I will treat my printer with utmost respect, greeting it submissively each morning and politely asking it to perform its functions that day. 

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