Continued From: "Dawn's Early Fight"Rushing home from Wal-Mart's Black Friday after-Thanksgiving sale, I couldn't help but notice area farmers, residents, and tourists showed us a distinct lack of ticker tape and confetti showers during our single car victory parade.
"Hey, people, we copped an all-in-one computer printer-scanner-copier for only $25!" I screamed at the distinct lack of area farmers, residents, and tourists along the route.
"Moo," said a possum. This town just doesn't get it.
Like a little kid on a month before Christmas morning, I ripped into my sparkly new box of Lexmark technology, shortly after removing the HAZMAT suit and three inches of accumulated dust found on and under the old, defunct, and freshly discarded printer in my office.
I followed the helpful instructions. Everything was going smoothly during the set-up process, until, buried in section #5, four words were slipped in there, hoping I wouldn't notice.
"Connect the USB cable."
"Huh? What USB cable?" I said to my wife, who took her cue, crawling under the bed to slip on her safety goggles.
My temper rose, zero to boil in 2.7 seconds.
I rifled through the packing carton. All of the listed enclosures were accounted for, but no USB cable was mentioned.
That's one method to keep the price of the machine so minuscule. Leave out a necessary part.
What an outrage! I've owned computers for more than two decades, but there is no spare USB cable in this house. Who has an available USB cable sitting around?
Grrrrr.
We returned to the Wal-Mart and located their only suitable USB cable: 12 dollars-plus with tax, half again as much as the price of the printer. I purchased one, but decided to shop for a better deal. With maniacal determination, we folded into the car and proceeded along the rural road.
"Cluck," said a raccoon.
At the home improvement place, we uncovered one USB cable, costing more than $18. Forget that.
At the dollar store, no luck, but my visit did cause me to wonder if dollar stores have Black Friday sales. You know, 5 a.m. deep savings, everything slashed to 99 cents or two for $1.99?
At the supermarket, while looking for something medicinal to calm my cardiac throbs and Ben & Jerry's to calm my weight loss, I wondered if this establishment might offer a USB cable to Mikey.
Sure enough, they did! And only $3.88!
We U-turned to Wal-Mart and got our 12 bucks back.
"That'll teach 'em," I said.
"Should we buy ink while we're here?" Donna asked.
"Yeah. I didn't think of that."
We found the aisle with the Lexmark #24 color cartridge.
"$21.98"
"Grrrrr..."
