\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cWhat the hell are you doing in there??\u00a0 I have a pissed-off parent waiting for this!\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Mack, waving around some guidance-counselor-y piece of paper.\u00a0 I was in the machine up to my waist, trying to discretely untangle my sleeve from twisty-thing 5.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m fixing the copier; what does it look<\/em> like I’m doing??\u201d\u00a0 I couldn’t turn myself quite far enough around to meet his eyes as I said it\u2014being stuck and on my knees and all\u2014but I did speak loudly and tried to sound as convincing as possible.<\/p>\n\u201cWell, what did you do to it??\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did I do<\/em> to it?\u00a0 I fed it a piece of paper and asked it to do its job<\/em> is what I did to <\/em>it.\u00a0 Frigging machine hates me.\u00a0 Every time I try to make a simple copy...\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cMachines don’t hate <\/em>people,\u201d interrupted Mack.\u00a0 \u201cIf you treat a machine gently, if you don’t bang on it and try to force it to...\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cOK, look,\u201d <\/em>I finally freed myself and eyed my hand circumspectly as I drew it out, the better to make sure I still had all my fingers.<\/p>\n\u201cOK, look,\u201d <\/em>I staggered back to a standing position, forgetting my knees aren’t what they used to be.<\/p>\n\u201cOK, look!\u201d <\/em>I shook Mack’s hand off my arm as he reached out to make sure I wasn’t going to buckle and fall back to the office floor.<\/p>\n\u201cI didn’t do anything to this stupid machine this morning that twenty other people didn’t do too.\u00a0 It just got tired; it decided it had enough, so by the time I came along, it...\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMachines don’t get tired, <\/em>and they don\u2019t decide <\/em>anything,\u201d Mack corrected again.<\/p>\n\u201cOK, Mr. Copier Psychologist, you <\/em>fix it, then!\u00a0 I hear your the best. Go ahead and live up to your reputation!\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cYeah!\u00a0 Mack thinks he knows everything!\u201d\u00a0 Pupil Accounting Secretary Marisol shouted from her desk in a show of female solidarity.<\/p>\n
\u201cCould you fix it please?\u201d <\/em>I abruptly switched strategies, remembering that catching-more-flies-with-honey thing.\u00a0 Plus, I was exhausted from my two rounds with the hot hulking hunk of a machine.<\/p>\nI held Mack’s important paper and his manila folder and his cup of coffee and stepped back with just a hint of ceremony.\u00a0 He lowered himself, grumbling all the way, to the hard linoleum floor. He wiggled.\u00a0 He waggled.\u00a0 He cranked from left to right, he turned on and off all the switches and dials and levers I had already messed with.\u00a0 He opened and shut another door or two that I hadn’t even noticed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s no paper in here,\u201d he concluded.\u00a0 \u201cAre you sure you put a piece of paper in here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course I’m sure!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, there’s nothing in here; you must be mistaken.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMistaken?\u00a0 How could I be mistaken?\u00a0 I put it there,\u201d<\/em> I pointed, \u201cand it sucked it in and started coughing and here we are!\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cMachines don’t cough,\u201d<\/em> said Mack.\u00a0 I threw up my hands.<\/p>\n\u201cOK, enough!!\u201d\u00a0 Marisol pushed back from her desk, got up, and marched over in her spike heels and tight pencil skirt.\u00a0 \u201cJ,\u201d she said, \u201cput down the X-Acto knife, and Mack, stop dropping Pop-Tart crumbs into the copier.\u201d<\/p>\n
We stepped aside, and she bent over at the waist\u2014always an event\u2014and reached down to a narrow little door all the way at the bottom and toward the back of the copier.\u00a0 She opened it with a practiced flick of the wrist, and there it was. My paper.\u00a0 With nary a crumple. She handed it to me with a smile, smirked at Mack over her shoulder, then whirled around and whacked the door shut with the back of her high heel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWow, Marisol, thanks!\u201d\u00a0 I said.\u00a0 \u201cI never even knew that door was down there.”<\/p>\n
\u201cDoors Schmors...\u201d said Mack.\u00a0 Wait...let me do my copy first, please, before this cranky parent kills me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, all right,\u201d I said, and stepped out of his way.<\/p>\n
Mack fed it into the copier, which made a grinding noise and started beeping.<\/p>\n
I love my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was in the machine up to my waist…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1676"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1840,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676\/revisions\/1840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>I peered in.\u00a0 Hmmm...according to the little red zigzags on the light-up screen on the top, the \u201cmis-feed\u201d was right where I was looking.<\/p>\n