I should be in a big hurry to get the copy machine fixed. It makes twenty perfect copies in ten seconds (not that I ever really need twenty copies of anything, much less that quickly). It's a matter of efficiency. I can do a better job with the high-priced equipment in good working order.

Maybe I should be in a hurry to fix the copier. Lately I've been using the 3-in-1 fax/printer in its third function as a copier, and it's not just slow. Compared to the big console, it's positively glacial. As long as it takes to print a page of text, that's how long it takes to copy half a page. I'm not sure why it does that slower, but it does. Maybe it's the fact that it has to scan the original. Whatever.

So really, I should hurry up and get the big copy machine repaired, right? But. But. But I can get so much done while I'm waiting for the 3-in-1 to print out a copy. Sure, it takes me all day to make those twenty copies I could have done in ten seconds. But it also gives me a good excuse to walk away and do something else, like (say) a little online shopping.

The key is not to waste time that I could be using to do real work. If I waste only the time that the machine is grinding through its process, self-checking its ink supply and realigning its heads (time after time after time), then it's guiltless time wasting. Not that guilt is a big concern of course, but if there's a good time to waste time, why wait for a bad time?

One of these days (and real soon, too) I'll check through the yellow pages and find a new copier tech. I still have some faint hope of hearing from my old guy, because he was good and cheap and always here whenever I had a problem. He's not answering his old phone number or his pager, though, so hope is fading. I hate phoning people I don't know, so I'll put this chore off as long as I can.

After the first of the year, I won't have any choice. I'll be putting out financial statements that require multiple copies of multiple pages. I could probably find enough other things to keep me busy while all those pages are printing. Sooner or later I'd have to start filing, just to pass the time. That's when a faster copier will become a necessity again.

For now, I'll stick with the slow method. I'm a long way from getting so desperate for something to do that I'd consider filing as an option.

I did some shopping today, in an actual store, with walls and everything. On my way to the mall I was already second-guessing myself about being in such a place at this time of year, but it was okay. It's not the prime shopping season just yet, I suppose, and it was a Tuesday morning. The next trip out might not be as tranquil, but there will have to be more.