I sound like I should be on a commercial or something... running into a house waving my paper-light new printer over my head for everyone to see. I may have just been taken advantage of in my first adulthood consumer scam, or I may have just made one of the best decisions of my entire life (not to be melodramatic).
I have this book of coupons from "Bronco Bash" the student organization fair at Western Michigan University with some awesome deals in it, and because I am in Kalamazoo and out of school, I have made it my mission to "utilize my coupons" before the expire on December 31st. Ah yes, the great irony of spending money to save money... I'm living it.
Last year one of my dear hall-mates left our school :'( and in her "will" bestowed upon me her Epson Printer. This printer has served me many triumphant days until the ink ran out. Today I learned that the cartridges for this particular printer must be replaced, and cannot be refilled. Yikes! So here I was standing at the Cartridge World Counter about to have my debit card swiped to replace all three of the color inks (because the freaking printer won't print black and while unless all of the cartridges are full) for $39.95 after learning that I can't even use my coupon because it's for refills only (devastating), when the cashiers eyes light up, and she says: "Now dear, I realize that you're about to spend nearly $40.00 just to replace these cartridges (mind you we had already bonded over the pain of this price total for such a small amount of ink), so I can't help but bring to your attention that you can buy an entirely new printer WITH ink that can be refilled (so i could use my coupon! :D) for just $10.00 more!"
I braced myself for the moment I had known would come someday in my big-girl life, when someone would try to sell me a piece of crap and make it sound super appealing. But, being the softie that I am, I followed her around the corner and inspected the lone, un-boxed (seemingly sketchy, but I let it slide) printer.
And she won me over! I felt like I asked all of the right questions... like So why is this printer so cheap? and So what exactly does a 30 day guarantee mean? (it means if anything goes wrong in 30 days you can bring it back) and How outdated is this printer, and will is stay up to date? In the midst of all of this I could not find a reason not to spend $10.00 more and get what I was already buying plus an ENTIRE PRINTER!
So, I have a new friend sitting on my back seat. Now the tables have turned, and I'm going to become the sneaky, stealthy salesperson on some lone website trying to make my dysfunctional printer look as appealing as possible to sell to someone else... I'll let you know how it goes.