Crisis At the Copy Machine

By Emily Reed

Although most of the country is educated at least to a high school level, many people don’t quite have the skills to operate a Xerox machine. Just a few weeks ago I witnessed a truly catastrophic situation, resembling a kick boxing fight, between a fuming mother of an eighth grade American history student, and one paper-jammed copy machine. A more recent phenomenon occurred just yesterday and involved a soon-to-be-blind thirty-three-year-old and a mound of needing-to-be-copied papers. Even some doctors have difficulty conquering the copy-machine-disease. Copying will be a burden for adults and children alike for years to come. All my life I will wonder why kids think their parents should go out and do their copying for them. If your report involves copying 17 pages of pictures then you should haul your little self down to the library and do some copying, but there are always the lazy guys like Conrad. “OK, copies are 10 cents so Mom should need $1.70.” Conrad plots his plan; he’ll pay for the copies if she’ll go make them. “Mom, do you think I could get you to make some copies for me,” Conrad pleads for assistance.

“How many?” his mother stalls. “17" “17, are you crazy”

“Oh please it’s necessary for my report,” he said. A little white-lie never hurts.

“Oh OK!” His mother agrees. So far Conrad’s mother is mad but hasn’t really done anything wrong, but just wait until she gets to the library. This story gets a lot more disastrous. Conrad’s mother made her way to the copy machine. She had a rather high stack of books and a very aggravated look on her face. After attempting to copy for five minutes, the mad woman begins opening doors, ripping at paper and pressing every button in existence. After several minutes of ineffectual pounding, door-opening, and tearing of paper, the stranger begins mouthing horrible, insulting words out loud to the copier as if were of human kind. A man, waiting in line walked over to offer his assistance. He glanced at the copy machine’s screen. “Please deposit 10 cents,” it read. Well, hello this was it she had never paid. “Excuse me, but you need to put your money in.” the man interrupted “Money, what money? Oh . . . ” Finally, the crinkle of a dollar bill as its being jammed into the money- taker, is heard. She pressed the green button and her face lit up like lights on a shining Christmas tree, as the paper rolled out and she collected her first copy of the night. My next crisis has a bit of a doleful ending. There was a man, around the age of thirty-three and a stack of books towering far too high to be measure, in the copying section. There were also many people waiting in line. The gentleman, who was obviously in a hurry, had a look in his eye as if he knew he was getting away with a shortcut. The poor guy had decided to leave the lid open as he made his copies. Well, he turned his page and slapped it onto the glass; his finger moving closer and closer to the green “start” button, the urge for someone to close the top grew stronger and stronger. But unfortunately no one did. He pressed the button and the blinding sharp green laser shot into the air. The next sound heard was a bloodcurdling scream followed by a hard pound as an innocent copy machine was kicked, then there was cursing. Some people swear they saw smoke coming out of the impaired man’s ears. The last seen of that guy was when he ran off into the Louisiana History section. We then have those who feel the copy machine is a camera, a toy to make obscene pictures with to amuse your fellow fools as you “work” on your term paper. “Here’s 10 dollars in case you need to make a few copies, call me, or something” “Thanks dad.” The brainless young teen opens the lid to the machine and pulls down his pants. As he hops up and sits on the cold clear glass, a rather shy grin spreads across his face. After his pants are re-buttoned, he smiles when he looks down at the picture of his buttocks. He makes his way over to his buddies and shows them what he has just done. “Hey guys, look what I did.”

“Cool dude, where’s the copier” Amused by the picture, the boy and his four “study-buddies” race off, leaving the abandoned books for some “10 cents a copy” machine. Money zooms in and papers zoom out, but then it all stops thirteen minutes later with this total waste-of-breath conversation. “Hey give me 35 cents!” “What? No!” “I gotta call my dad” “Didn’t he give you money?”

“Ummm . . .yeah . . . look what your holding.” Idiot number three looks down at the ninety-seven copies of body parts he’s holding and starts digging in his pockets for change. So my basic point is, get your education and degrees and special “know-it-all” titles, but don’t forget to get the title that reads “common-sense-genius.” Come on, people. Can copying really be that hard? When in doubt read the directions. Check your local library or office supply store to observe more copying crises.

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