It doesn’t have to be technology for it to go on the fritz for me. Yesterday it was the basic running water in my house that decided not to work for awhile. Today it was the fax/printer. That might be the most important device I use for work, other than the computer itself, and the middle of a holiday week is not a good time to have to replace it. At least I’ve already done my online research (although that doesn’t usually mean I end up with the same model I start out looking for).

The disaster happened in the middle of my payroll run, too. I’d waited until mid afternoon for the time cards, hoping to get the paychecks out today, since there’s a missing day of mail delivery this week. That wouldn’t have happened even if I hadn’t lost the printer, because I got started too late. But I could have finished tonight and got the checks in the mail tomorrow, if the printer hadn’t balked. (And if the time cards had been here Monday as promised, I would have finished last night and mailed the checks today.)

So now I have to get up in time to run to the office store in the morning, look for the printer I want and then probably settle for whatever model they have that (a) we can afford and (2) will do what I need, and rush back to finish the payroll in time to get it out in the early delivery. That’s assuming I don’t have any trouble setting up the new printer. Sometimes I do tend to make things harder than they need to be.

As for the water, I spoke to my landlord about it tonight and he had no idea. I was in the middle of taking a shower yesterday morning when the water trickled down to nothing, then stopped altogether. I had gallon jugs of cold water saved in case of any toilet malfunction, so at least I could rinse myself off. And the water came back on after a few minutes anyway. It’s been on ever since, but I wanted the landlord to know about it. Naturally, he won’t do anything until it happens again, but we’re on the same well pump so he’ll lose it whenever I do.