Jewels Is A Gal’s Best Fiend

Cue the maniacal laughter. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom’s fellow Think Tanker, Jewels, has fallen into favor with Mrs. HM of late. Tuesday, four hours after the Semi Weekly Meeting of the Newmentia Lunch Time Think Tank had adjourned, Jewels proved herself to be just as diabolical as Mrs. HM herself.

I had gone to the teacher workroom to run off some ACT practice tests. That mandatory state-wide test date is fast approaching. As I bellied up to Kyocera, I saw an unwelcome screen. ADD PAPER IN DRAWER 4. Ain’t that a fine how-do-ye-do? Shoveling paper into Kyocera’s gaping maw is not the issue. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is not too decrepit to pitch in and perform a little physical labor every now and then. But you can bet your bottom dollar that such labor had better benefit Mrs. Hillbilly Mom! She’s a short-timer, you know.

Here’s the deal. A stack of multipage copied stapled papers sat on the table that the teacher mailbox cubby sits upon. Obviously somebody had taken them off the Kyocera. Obviously it was not the person they belonged to. A different set of copied stapled papers languished in the output tray. So Mrs. HM got to thinking…Am I filling this copier so a job already running can continue? Thus hogging the copier, delaying my own job, as well as eating up the paper I am feeding Kyocera right now?

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is not a copy room attendant. She is not a copy clerk. You want copies, you go stand and supervise your own technology, by cracky! Don’t be sending them through the invisible magic signal to that copier, while you sit in your room and gossip eating bonbons! You go there! You stand tapping your toe, breathing your hot breath on Kyocera’s slit glass, and watch! You feed the insatiable beast! You reach your arm up to the elbow in its gullet to cure its digestion problems. Don’t be sending jobs in here all orphany, to fend for themselves.

Mrs. Not-A-Cook came waltzing in the door. Perhaps not so much exhibiting dance moves as rushing to the potty. I knew she didn’t send copies from her room. And I knew better than to ask for her help. If it’s possible to be more in the dark than a chemosynthetic sea-vent tubeworm where technology is concerned, Mrs. Not-A-Cook takes the cake-walk prize. But I did consult her. I said, “Am I filling this copier so a job already running can continue?” 

 Mrs. Not-A-Cook gave up her next-in-line potty spot to walk toward me. “I hope not. I hate it when people do that.” I showed her what I had taken off Kyocera’s copy ledge. “That was on there at lunch! Pinky came in, saw them, and said she’d just run them on the Lesser Kyocera. So she did.”

Well, well, well. Looks like I was in the clear. I put my two reams (yeah, no need to go overboard) of paper into Kyocera’s nether regions and closed her up. What do you know! Kyocera started humming with a job already in progress, and began spitting out those same stapled papers. I knew better than to ask Mrs. Not-A-Cook. But at that moment, Jewels stormed in. Not that she was mad. She just walks with a definite purpose.

“Do you know how to stop this? I just put paper in it, and I need to run my copies, and now it has resumed a job that ran out of paper because somebody printed it from their room. Or left it here to fend for itself.”

“Hmm…let’s see…” Jewels started tapping buttons on the control panel. “Here it is! The only job running. It’s Pinky’s. Do you want me to CANCEL it?”

“I just want it stopped. No need to completely cancel it. I’m sure she can figure out how to make it go again if she comes in and wants them.”

“Okay then. There! It’s paused. “

“Thanks!” I put my originals in the feeder and commenced to copyin’.

Yep. Jewels is a gal’s best fiend. Even if I DID keep her from canceling the whole job