*THUD*

This morning I was sitting on the train and an idea about the book I've been writing on and off slapped me upside the head. I think it has to do with the coffee I walked out of the house with this morning. I used to get brilliant ideas for papers in college on the strength of the coffee my French Theater professor made during the break (it was a three-hour class on Wednesday nights. Coffee was a necessity.) Anyway, it was a highly nifty idea. Too bad I can't act on it until I get home.

I had a whole string of disturbing dreams last night. I kept waking up and thinking "I don't want to have this dream any more" and going back to sleep and having another dream I didn't want. I wish I knew what in hell is bothering me.

The other THUD in my life today is my head hitting the desk. You can't restart a Windows computer with a disk in the floppy drive. Doesn't everybody know that yet? Obviously not, since I just dealt with a panicked student who didn't know what "Non-system disk or disk error" meant and came telling me the computer was saying something completely different.

Yesterday the public-access printer was out of toner, AGAIN. I gave the toner cartridge to the first student who came to tell me that and told him to replace the old one, and that it isn't that difficult. What does he do? Wait for it...

He puts the new toner cartridge next to the printer, and never even opens the box. *THUD* Three more people come tell me the printer isn't working. *THUD* I tell them to go ask the first person what he did with the toner. After the fourth person tells me the printer isn't working, I go in and find the unopened box with the new cartridge in it. *THUD* Grr, snarl, replace toner cartridge, go back to eating lunch, tell three more people the printer is now working again and no, I won't print their Vitally Important Document in my printer. *THUD*

The instructions are printed directly on the toner cartridge. I don't understand these people at all.