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On my previous printer, I tore through different inks at different rates and was amazed to find that light magenta, AKA pink, was the color I most consumed.  I think it was due to a profile mismatch resulting in a ruddy hue suffusing each print but I’ve had no such problem on my new massive printer which instead is nearly empty of light light gray.  Not light light black, mind you, but light light gray.  I’ve run out of an ink cartridge that most printers simply don’t have.

My standard tactic with my previous printer was to always have a spare of each color on hand and I planned to extend that to my new printer as this often saves on shipping so added 1x of each of the 11 cartridges to my shopping cart and started the check-out process then stopped.

Was it the fact that the purchase totaled over $1100? No.
Was it the fact that it would take two paychecks to pay for ink? No.
Was it the fact that I would then have roughly 1/2 gallon of ink in my house? No.

It was the fact that the purchase was large enough to hit the one year no interest, no payments limit that the site from which I buy ink was offering.  I was going to finance an ink purchase.  It was with a heavy heart but my sense of financial prudence intact that I removed 10 items from cart, swallowed the slightly higher lifetime cost of multiple shipments, and hit the BUY button.  My tub of light light gray ink is on its way, cold and alone, with no friends.  I’m fine with that.

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Dad: What did you do today?
Me: I made a bunch of prints for work.  I was going to do five but I ran out of pink  ink.
Dad: How much is a replacement?
Me: $12.97 for a 1/3 of a fluid oz or about $4500 a gallon.
Dad: What’s it made of?
Me: Well, four things, I think.  Pigment, and some sort of semi-aqueous fluid as a suspension medium.  The 3rd and 4th ingredients make up the lion’s share and are unicorn blood and profit margin.  I’m not sure what the ratio is though.

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Yesterday, the black ink cartridge went out in Eagle’s printer and today I returned with a replacement.  In the mean time, the department’s need of partials would not be stopped and the staff came up with a fix by printing out their normal forms rendered in pure red, blue, and green in an attempt to shift to the color cartridge.  While creative, there are two problems:

1) Color ink is stupidly expensive
2) Ink is generally CYMK because it’s subtractive rather than RGB which is additive

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Take 1 (short): I’m not sure how to convey the gravity of accident, but I’ll put it simply: never have so many gel pens lives been cut short by a single trip through a washing machine.

Take 2: (good news/bad news): Good news – I get to buy new shirts.
Bad news – I have to buy new shirts.

Take 3 (pensive): One would think removing a fistful of gel pens from a shirt pocket before washing would be easy.  But there they sat as chemographic time bombs waiting for me to slip up.  The roar of carnage was silent but the aftermath woud be a stain on the shirt of readiness for a generation.  Let us never forget.

Take 4 (epigraph): Here lies the bodies of a 1/2 dozen gel pens.  The suicide bombers of the laundry world.