Dear Printer,

Why must you be such a colossal arsepiece?

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You recognise there is a full black ink cartridge in your belly, and yet you blast my attempts to print with an error message:

‘Uh, that cartridge is recycled. I’m not printing with that.’

Why not, you fussy sod? It’s not like I didn’t try to get brand cartridges, but there were none to be had because, dear printer, you’ve long since gone out of style. Quite frankly you were past it when I bought you, in a sale, at Tesco – nestled in amongst cheap kettles and cutlery for the student crowd heading to uni for the first time. EVEN BRAND NEW UNDERGRADS KNEW TO AVOID YOU, PRINTER. You ain’t all that.

‘Also,’ you press on, dear printer, oblivious to the anguish you are causing, ‘also, there’s nothing left in the colour cartridge. So, y’know. That’s a problem.’

Why, pray tell, is that such an issue for you? I am not trying to print in colour, printer. The text of my manuscript is black (arial size 12) and you’ve got a brand new black cartridge ready to deal with it if only you’d give recycling a go. And what is so wrong with reusing an old cartridge, exactly? Something something printer heads, foam and alignment… I call bullhockey. You’re probably one of those climate change denying printers, too. You probably think the weather’s super erratic these days because women have the right to vote now. YOU MAKE ME SICK.

I will not be wasting any more of my time looking for on brand cartridges, printer. You are obsolete, and I will shortly be sacrificing you to the gods of Freecycle or Gumtree with a strong recommendation that your future owner considers using you for parts.

Kind regards,
Ali

PS If anybody wants a couple of recycled black ink cartridges for an HP 4200 series printer let me know, apparently I can’t use them.