A Douglas Adams moment

This afternoon I was alone in the office working when a page flew out of the printer and onto the ground. I walked over to inspect. It said:

testing

Ha! Somewhere in the bowels of one of the computers, a request from long ago had been hatched, crawled to the surface, and lived out its intended duty. The curious and likely frazzled tester was not present – away, perhaps. Long dead, even.

About two minutes later another page flew out. I crossed the room and bent over to look.

testing

Ha – I wish there were a stop print button, I thought. But might as well let it get out of whatever conputer’s system.

A few minutes later, another email.

help me

testing

Then a second one like that. A plaintive sob set in Courier New.

Ten minutes later, a frazzled and very confused-looking woman entered the room and politely asked if I had gotten her test prints. In a
flurry of apology, she mumbled something about USB and “default settings” and whizzed out, stressing the point that if I ever needed anything, she was just down the hall.

I wonder how she got our wifi password…