The 7 Emotional Stages Of Realising That Your Printer Is Out Of Ink

An important document that can’t be printed is like a gift that can’t be unwrapped, a gripping novel with the ending torn out, the perfect heist foiled by a getaway car out of petrol.

If this sounds overdramatic, count yourself lucky. You don’t know what it feels like to stare at a printer and accept that the cute little menus you designed for the dinner party tonight, the report you’ve toiled over for today’s meeting or the boarding pass you so urgently need will not see the light of paper anytime soon.

There are no support groups to turn to. Every cry for help will only be met with lectures (‘you should always have a spare’) or unhelpful people rubbing it in (‘I have loads of extra cartridges but I’m in Canada’). If you find yourself in this wretched predicament, be prepared to go through these seven stages before you can heal, move on and perhaps learn how to stop it from ever happening again.

This is not happening

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Your defence mechanism stops you from being overwhelmed by numbing you with shock. At this stage you will calmly take out the cartridge and reinsert it, turn the printer on and off again, tip out every drawer in the house while laughing a little maniacally. Not long now before you can joke about how you nearly threw your printer out the window but luckily it got second wind and printed just fine.

This is ALL MY FAULT

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It didn’t get a second wind. The true extent of the horror hits you, filling your sorry soul with regret and guilt. If only you’d stockpiled on cartridges. Why didn’t you change the settings to grayscale? This would never have happened if you’d invested in better ink instead of splurging on sushi for lunch.

Why me, world? Why?

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You will rage against the printing machine. Lash out at the ream of paper. Picture all the other people with their ink-filled printers scanning their middle finger and smugly printing sheets and sheets for no reason other than because they can. You’ll beg. React passive aggressively. Leave a status update that will make at least one friend fear for your wellbeing.

Hello darkness my old friend

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This is a time for quiet reflection. You conjure up your inner child, the one who learned to be brave and hold it together when the pet rabbit ran away. To spare others the weight of your pain, you’ll withdraw into yourself, put on some Nick Cave. It’s probably a good thing you couldn’t print those birthday invites. What’s the point in marking a life when everything must perish?

I’m fine! Everything’s FINE!

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Somehow, you coped. You didn’t miss the plane, or get fired or dumped. But the stress of having to convert to pdf and the humiliation of asking someone else to print is still burning you up inside, so you mask it with hubris. You may even announce you’re actually glad the ink ran out. You now know how Baudelaire felt when he gazed upon the river of truth to find his pen run dry.

Time to face the facts

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It happened. You let the printer run out of ink. No point beating yourself up about it. You’re sort of regretting the negative review you left about the printer on Trust Pilot. What you need right now is a realistic solution. Run out of ink once, shame on you. Run out of ink twice, seriously, sort it out already.

Problem solved

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Imagine your own personal ink assistant. Who automatically knows when you’re running low on ink, and arranges a transfer to arrive at your door before it runs out. Sounds crazy, but HP Instant Ink lets you do just that. With a free printing plan, up to 15 pages worth of ink for free per month, it’s a friendly, helpful and convenient service for people with busy lifestyles. HP Instant Ink reinvents simplicity. Original HP ink, ordered by your printer and delivered to your door.

To find out how to make sure you never run out of ink again, visit HP Instant Ink.

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