A Jen Too Many

I had to send some information out the other day, but one of my originals was a very small piece of paper which wasn't going to fit through the fax machine. No problem. I have a spiffy all-in-one home office machine, so I just put it on the flatbed and hit copy.

Hmmm. That didn't go well. Before I was a quarter of the way through the copy the paper had jammed.

I looked in where the paper fed through and quickly found the culprit. A pen had been poked into the paper feed and was now lying horizontally just where it would do the most harm. My hand being much larger than the hand that (undoubtedly) stuck it in there, I couldn't reach it, although I cut the back of my hand trying.

Well, what are children for, if not to fix the messes they have made, right? My oldest was easily able to reach in and pull the pen out.

Problem solved! Back to copying!

Hmmm. Not yet. When I hit the copy button the machine just made rude noises at me and flashed that there was a paper jam.

I checked everything I knew how to open and couldn't see anything, so I went to the manufacturer's website to see if there was anything else I could open (I love the internet! Remember when we had to call and wait for days or weeks for the mail to arrive if we wanted a copy of a repair manual?)

Yes! There was another port. I unplugged the printer from everything so that I could turn it around and upside down, and opened my last chance.

There it was, the real cause of my paper jam - a ramen noodles seasoning packet.

This would never happen in a real office.