Paper jam from hell

It’s almost too much of a cliche not to write about.

I had never had a paper jam in the two-year history of my printer. Last week, when I was sending out submissions to literary agents, it was being a little crotchety, but no big deal, it seemed to be a feeding issue.

Today, I get the e-mail I’ve been waiting for. Someone wants me to send them the whole manuscript. She’d prefer it via e-mail, but oh, no I can’t do that because the Czech letters might show up as gibberish and that might count against me.

So yeah, it jams on page 32 (of 218). And yeah, as a matter of fact I do think the way to clear a paper jam is to just yank the page right out. And no, I wasn’t really all that surprised when the page tore. What did surprise me was how tight the little rollers in my Dell P1500 personal laser printer wanted to hold on to that sucker. It also surprised me that my owner’s manual gave me not one single bit of advice about clearing paper jams. Not even the obvious “lift the top cover and take out the toner cartridge” bit that I’d already done.

I search the internet and the Dell page and I can find nothing at all about clearing paper jams out of this particular model of printer. And I’m using tweezers to tear the bit of paper into little shreds thinking this is some kind of solution, stopping every few minutes to check for the little tab or level or roller that I’ve somehow missed that will release this scrap from my printer’s clutches.

You know what finally cleared it? I used the buckslip I received a few weeks ago from another agent–the first rejection that didn’t start with Dear Author. Technically it did start with Dear Author, but she had crossed out Author and written my name, along with “This was a close one. You have a strong voice and and interesting heroine, not to mention and unusual setting. Keep submitting!”

I pushed the shredded paper out with that buckslip. How poetic is that?

Then I couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t print when the toner cartridge was sitting on my carpet. It’s jammed twice while I’ve been typing this. But I yanked the paper out with a little more care. It’s done printing now. I have to go stuff it in an envelope so I can get back to watching So You Think You Can Dance. Thank goodness Ryan didn’t get voted off.