My Printer Knows Too Much

It started innocently enough—just another morning here at the edge of nowhere, where the cows moo louder than the Internet signal, and the rooster still thinks he runs the place. I was brewing coffee so strong it could refinish furniture when I heard the whir of the printer upstairs. That alone was odd–since I hadn’t asked it to do anything lately–unless you count my plea last week for it to stop being a jerk.

For the better part of our marriage, my wife Mary regarded computers the same way she regards tofu–something unnatural and vaguely threatening. She’d stand two feet back from the keyboard, pointing like she was defusing a bomb.

“Why’s it doing that?” she’d ask while the screen blinked innocently.

And, I’d come to the rescue with all the grace and wisdom of a man who mostly just hit ‘restart’ and hoped for the best. But between online quilt forums and an unhealthy fascination with Pinterest, Mary’s got good.

Not “works for NASA,” kinda skills, but “makes the printer obey her commands” good. Which, in this house, is a form of sorcery.

So anyway, the printer spits out this piece of paper, right? Just one page. Plain old white with black ink. No smiley face, no clipart, just this little typed note that said, “This is your printer. I am aware. I know where you sleep.”

I’ll be the first to admit she got me a couple of times.

Once, Mary put googly eyes on all the apples in the fruit bowl, and it took me a full hour to notice. Another time, she replaced all the desktop icons with photos of our dogs, who now manage the Wi-Fi.

So naturally, I held up the paper and hollered down the stairs, “Real cute, Mary. I get it. You’re the tech queen now.”

She hollered back, “What are you talking about?”

I paused because she ain’t that good of an actress. When Mary’s fibbing, her right eyebrow does this little twitch like it’s trying to signal Morse code for “I’m full of it.”

But she wasn’t even in the room. That’s when it hit me: I sleep in the same room as the printer.

Now, I’m not saying I believe machines are becoming sentient. But I am saying since then, I’ve been sleeping with one eye open. I even unplug the printer at night, just to be safe. I swear I heard it sigh in disappointment. It could’ve been the wind, the dogs, or my dignity escaping, but I don’t sleep too soundly.

After all, Mary knows where I sleep, too.