Today's frustration.

There's always something that tries to intercept my plans for a laid back day to be enjoyed from sunrise to midnight.

Today's first order of business was to print and mail a bunch of checks and documents, a no brainer to do while preparing breakfast. The details of what was to be printed were history, so just a matter of filling out a computer check registry and retrieving a few files.

But .... as soon as I hit the print button I got the nasty message: Replace Black Toner cartridge.

No big deal, where's the extra toner cartridge. NONE!
No big deal, just select the toner bypass, print anyway option: NONE
No big deal, just send to the printer in the basement: Add printer: CAN'T FIND
No big deal, just send the file to the basement computer and print from there: NOPE, for some MS programs there are no APPLE compatibles.

BIG deal: breakfast biscuits are now overcooked by 20+ minutes and hard as rocks.

OK, I'm a techie, and have bypassed stupid toner initiated printer lockdowns hundreds of times and there's always an extra 100 or maybe even 1,000 printable pages in what Brothers' or HP says is an empty toner cartridge.

Click-click-click: There it is, "how to bypass a CDW3270 printer toner lockdown". Press these two buttons at the same time and then that button, then do something else and bingo, a previously hidden menu should light up.

I did, it didn't, no luck.

Try again: no luck,
And again and again: No luck.

Then I remembered an old trick that always seems to work at least half the time. Turn the printer off, count to 10, slowly, and back on ... and try again.

BINGO!!

Simile! There are few things more empowering than outsmarting a stupid machine that was intentionally designed to ruin your day if you didn't stock up on THEIR overpriced supplies..