Ink?

Who uses ink anymore?

In this hi-tech, computerized world we have nowadays, why would we ever need to print anything?

Well, believe it or not, there are still those times when you need a piece of paper in your hand instead of a digital version.

And because of that, we are going to continue to rely on printers, at least occasionally.

You might or might not have noticed but there's a bit of a price war out there between printer manufacturers.

And the competition involves not so much the actual printers as it does the ink that said printers require to convert your on-screen document into paper.

Round here we don't use nearly as much paper as we once did. But we still use some.

While the age of the paperless office is not quite here yet, it's getting closer. And even closer than that is the extinction of film cameras. I can't remember the last time I used a camera that required film. With the evolution of digital imagery, film is not required very often (although many professional photographers still prefer to use it when shooting high-dollar assignments).

For amateur photo-takers, using a film-loaded camera is akin to using a hammer, chisel and a rock, especially when you can buy a 10-megapixel camera for less than $200 and shoot hundreds of high-resolution photos on a multi-gigabyte storage card.

But the printer, on the other hand, refuses to die and so we still must buy ink.

I recently purchased a printer that uses cartridges that are a bit pricey (imagine that) and not only that, they are available only through the company that sold me the printer. No going to Walmart or Radio Shack to replace these cartridges. No sir. You have to fork out your $70 electronically to get one each of the black and color ink fountains.

So that's what I did. And while I was waiting for them to arrive, the black cartridge ran dry while the color counterpart still had lots of ink left.

A couple of days later, a package arrived. Inside the box was a color ink cartridge, a packing slip and some other assorted papers touting this, that and the other "special" offer.

I had plenty of color ink. It was the black cartridge I really needed. I figured the black cartridge had shipped separately. So I waited some more. About a week more. And finally I became annoyed enough to fill out an online complaint form about part of my order not being shipped.

As I was jumping through the hoops on the complaint form, I came to the portion where it asked me for my order number. Being the alert consumer that I am, I had saved the order number and quickly typed it in.

Then the form wanted to know if the missing item (in this case the black cartridge) was listed on the packing slip that came with the package.

Well, since I didn't need the color cartridge right away, I had opened the package just long enough to see that the color cartridge was in there along with the aforementioned papers. I then shut the box and put it away.

I retrieved the box to check the packing slip. I opened it and moved the papers aside.

Guess what was hidden underneath the papers in a little compartment on the opposite side and at the opposite end from where the color cartridge was in plain view?

That's right — the black cartridge.

I quickly exited the complaint form and wondered aloud about how dumb one person (in this case, me) could be for not more thoroughly checking the box's contents. I could have had that black cartridge installed two weeks ago.

OK, so I'm a moron.

But at least now I'm a moron with a fully functioning printer.

Klonie Jordan (editor@gaffneyledger.com) is executive editor of The Gaffney Ledger.