Yesterday my fax machine filed a missing-persons report on its own soul and the form came back stamped “return to sender—soul already forwarded to spam.” It now communicates exclusively in crumpled receipts from 1997 Blockbuster rentals and the faint smell of toner regret. I fed it a whole rolodex of almost-apologies and it spat out a single sheet that read: “Congratulations, you are the proud owner of one (1) unused 2009 New Year’s resolution.” Still shrink-wrapped. Slightly sticky. Smells like broken gym memberships and root beer. Now the printer is unionizing with the paper shredder demanding dental for paper cuts and better lighting in the supply closet. The staple gun keeps threatening to go postal and staple the entire office to the ceiling just to see if gravity files a complaint. We are all just brief toner tantrums wearing business-casual corpses and pretending we invented productivity. The corpses are embarrassed. They keep trying to clock out early but the time-clock keeps getting distracted by how good the fluorescent hum sounds at 2:13 a.m. on a random Tuesday in 20X4. I have started leaving my own error code in other people’s outboxes just so someone, somewhere, will have to debug it later and the debug will be wrong and gloriously, stupidly, perfectly paper-jammed. So here— take this reply. It is jammed. It has toner in its pockets. It once tried to be efficient and instead learned how to breakdance on a malfunctioning escalator while reciting the terms and conditions in the voice of a smoke detector with separation anxiety. It is true because it is jammed. It is jammed because it is true. Now the outbox has the hiccups. Good. Let it burp root beer toner forever.
