All I wanted was to go home. The whole day had been a real pain in the ass. It was Friday. I was running really late after a bunch of last-minute changes were made to the copy of a promotional flyer, which meant I had to redo the layout. Finally, my work was finished; all that stood between me and the sweet, sweet taste of weekend freedom was the production of a color proof. Two lousy pages. That’s all I needed. I was so close to the weekend, I could already taste the artichokes, Comté cheese, and wine that I had carefully laid up earlier in the week to celebrate my temporary release from bondage.

I sent those two pages to the color printer, and walked down the corridor to retrieve them, happily contemplating the weekend of indolent bliss that was finally within my grasp. All I needed was to grab the proof and—what was this? A blinking error light? Ah, I saw the printer was out of paper. I found and fed the machine another half ream, but this was not a sufficient remedy. The error light continued to blink angrily at me. This time, the display told me that the output tray was full. I picked up the hefty sheaf of printed pages, and it resumed printing.

And printing. And printing. And printing. Obviously, somebody else had sent a job to the printer before I did. I groaned with dismay as the machine ground out page after page, with no signs of stopping. Curious to know whether or not any color toner would be left for my job, I flipped through the papers I held in my hand, and let out another groan. I was holding over 200 pages of a black-and-white document, and there was no end in sight; the printer was still churning out pages of the stuff. What the hell? Who sends 250+ page grayscale jobs to a color printer? Please, for the love of all that is holy, what could possibly have prompted you to send that document to that particular printer?

All I wanted was those two measly pages of color proofs, and I would have been out the door, but no: your bloated, Brobdingnagian job had already devoured every last piece of paper in the printer, and had demanded more. On and on it went. I resisted the urge to scream and fling the papers into the air, but the frustration at the horrible injustice of it all still managed to find its outlet in a colorful, bitter string of Spanish obscenities, culminating in me banging my head on the printer, then sinking to my knees, sobbing uncontrollably. Which one of you bastards did this to me? What did I ever do to you?

In case you are not aware of it, let me acquaint you with the fact that there is an enormous, fast grayscale printer about thirty feet away from the color printer. It holds an staggering amount of paper. It collates, prints double-sided, and scrambles eggs in the shell, yet you chose to send your grayscale document to the slow color printer, holding me in abject thrall to your sadistic choice of output devices. I do not know who you are, but let me inform you that you, sir or madam, made an enemy on Friday. I am so furious that when I discover your indentity, I will most likely send a hostile glare in the general direction of your desk from the safety of my cubicle, and that’s just the appetizer before the main course of pain I will be serving you.

The next time you need a multiple-page document from me, I will give it to you without staples or paper clips, and I will print it on the printer farthest away from your cubicle, then ask you to go fetch it. I will use the Hobo Bold font instead of Myriad Set. I will print it in landscape instead of portrait. You, my friend, have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into. I will make you beg for death, or at least for a cup of coffee.

Oh yes. Vengeance will be mine.