When last I wrote of the young man who was in need of help regarding word processing files, the plan was that he would call me and arrange for a time to come have the files printed.

If he gets around to calling, I have some bad news for him. I can't do the work after all.

I haven't used the machine in a couple of years, so I decided it might be smart to set up the thing to see if I had plenty of ink. I still don't know the answer to that one---the machine wouldn't work. If it were "just" out of ink, it would have let me do everything but print. It would start, but it would not recognize that it had a diskette in it (that I know had at least one document on it). And it wouldn't print, either---it showed an error message that said it had no paper, but it did have paper.

Ah well. As I said, I wasn't using it. I don't need any of the documents on the diskettes I have---they were copies of documents that I have paper versions of in case I ever need to know what I said. I don't have any client documents on those diskettes.

I suspect when I get around to asking, my friend the business machines guru will tell me to throw the machine out rather than put any money into repairing it. And I will listen to him.

As for the young man, he will be told that unless he can find someone else with one of the machines, he will probably have to buy a used one (or get his repaired). Either buying or a repair will cost more than he would have needed to pay me, of course.

If I didn't think this was so funny, I might feel sorry for him. As it is, I see it as poetic justice that he will have to spend so much more money after trying to get away with paying me "a little," and being rude to me in the process. Especially since when I was getting the word processor out and set up, I found a brand new ink cartridge for my computer printer, which I had forgotten buying last spring.

Having that cartridge (which I may need soon) will save me more than I would have made doing the printing for the young man.