A Printer for Farook

When I first met Farook, he had a computer in his office. Only it didn’t have a hard drive or any RAM. He just had the almost empty case so he would look up to date.

Then he got a secretary who can type, only she needed something to type on, so Farook got one of his children’s old computers, brought it to the office, and his new secretary started typing up ads, contracts, and other things Farook needed.

But Farook cares about his children, so, when one of them needed a printer to do his homework, Farook took the printer from the office and replaced it with a printer another child had abandoned years before. The printer wouldn’t print, so Farook called me.

The printer needed a driver, which I managed to obtain and install. With the driver, the printer returned the message ‘Out of Ink.’ This was about two months ago. I told Farook he needed ink for this printer, removed all the ink cartridges, and told Farook to go to a computer store, show them the cartridges, and get new ones that were identical to the ones I’d removed. Only the new ones cost €50. The store also had fakes for €20, so that’s what Farook got.

Last week he called, and asked me to install the fakes. They didn’t fit. I showed Farook the originals and the fakes, and said the printer needed cartridges identical to the originals. Farook said it had been working fine with fakes before. I pointed out that the cartridges I’d removed said, ‘Original Xerox,’ and the fakes said, ‘Not Xerox product.’ The printing (all in English) was quite different. But, to Farook, infidel printing is infidel printing. In the Latin alphabet, Xerox and xylophone look identical to Farook. As do Xerox and Not Xerox. (To be fair, the same can be said about Arabic and me, and I once got fired for confusing ‘similar’ with ‘identical’ on a Top Secret document I’d been sent to fetch.) Still, I got a KFC meal out of the trip to see Farook.

So this week Farook called again and invited me over. And he had the same fake cartridges. He said he’d tried to get a printer that would work with his old computer, but they didn’t make them any more. Cross examination revealed that a printer that would work with his computer would cost €150, which Farook will not pay when new printers sell for less than €40. It seems that Farook thought that, after a week’s reflection, maybe I’d figured out a way to get the fake cartridges to work.

I hadn’t.

So another two hours wasted. And this time I only got a cup of tea and a cup of coffee for my trouble.

Which was, perhaps, healthier than KFC.