Thankful Thursdays

It's Thursday, and I hope you have time to read because I've got plenty to be thankful for!

Let me start with the first part of this story. At the beginning of the month the electric company was doing some work in our area at the same time I was trying to scan some paperwork onto my computer. We had 4 power outages and numerous surges, and at the end of it all our printer, which was already giving us problems for awhile, decided it had done its last work for us. I say this because it didn't stop working; it turns on and can even make copies. It just wouldn't work for US. It refused to print or scan anything.

My son had purchased this printer about 3 years ago during a Black Friday sale. My husband also went to a Black Friday sale at another store and purchased a printer the same day. Rather than return the printer, J decided to put it away in case we ever needed it. Now with our printer on strike, he proudly said we could use the printer he'd saved all these years. Great, I thought, this thing was taking up way too much space in our wall unit. It was finally going to be useful. I gave it to my computer literate son to install.

I should have known we'd have problems when R told me he'd had trouble connecting the printer to our computer because it was so old it didn't recognize Windows Vista. He managed to get it installed via some updates from HP, so I thought we were good to go. Oops, there was a problem. No ink cartridges. I know printers usually bring ink cartridges when first purchased, but this had been in our house for 3 years; maybe they'd gotten misplaced? Whatever, I thought, I'll just run over to Costco and get some. That's right, some. Turns out the printer required 6 ink cartridges in multiple colors, and wouldn't work unless all the cartridges were installed. (I was starting to not like this printer already). I purchased the cartridges at the tune of $120.89. Grrrr. Waaay to much money, but we needed a printer and this was what we had to work with. I'd get these put in and we'd be on our way. Or so I thought.

I put in the six cartridges and proceeded with the installation. It wouldn't print. I looked at the screen: Wrong Cartridges. What?!?! I'd bought the ones the manual said! What do mean they're wrong?! I went back to the manual and read the instructions again. That's when I came upon the part that said this printer required the special "introductory cartridges" that came in the box, and without those introductory cartridges installed first the printer would not work. I tore the wall unit apart looking all over for these cartridges but they were nowhere to be found. I asked J, who told me to ask R, who said he'd never even opened the package till he went to install the printer and there were no cartridges there. (I was starting to REALLY not like this printer). Time to call HP.

The three different customer service/technical folks I spoke to all said the same thing: the introductory cartridges should be in the box. It took a while to make them understand that we'd had this printer sitting around for the past 3 years and didn't have the box anymore. I couldn't take it back to the store because J didn't have the receipt nor the original packaging, and I couldn't get it to work without those cartridges. The techs were helpful, trying to find these necessary cartridges for us, but to no avail. This printer had last been manufactured in 2006 and there were no cartridges to be had anywhere. I looked all over the internet, but since these cartridges were never individually sold there were none on the market anywhere. Not only was I upset that we had this printer that was useless, but now I had $120.89 worth of cartridges that I'd already taken out of the package. (It was official - I now despised the printer). I decided to look for a new printer that would use these same cartridges, that way I would only be out a printer (that by the way cost my husband LESS than the cartridges). I did find several models that used the same cartridges, however the cheapest one cost $441 on amazon.com. It seemed hopeless. I was angry at a printer that wouldn't respond to the ink even though they were technically the right ones, and I was angry that I had basically lost $120.89 since I was sure Costco wouldn't take them back once I'd opened the package. Or would they?

This brings me to part 2 of the story. I buy quite a bit from Costco, and we have our American Express card with them. This means we get rebates at the end of the year for all our purchases, even gasoline. We could use our rebate money to get a new printer. I'd wanted the rebate money for a new vacuum cleaner, but the printer was more of a need. We also figured it wouldn't hurt to try and return the cartridges. I prayed as I drove to Costco in hopes they'd be kind and give us our money back, since the cartridges were opened but never used. Well, they did!!! I was praising God left and right for His goodness. It meant that we could still get the vacuum cleaner if the printer wasn't too expensive. Praise God once again, there was a printer/scanner/copier/fax machine on sale for $89.99! It allowed us to get the printer and the new Dyson DC14 vacuum cleaner, for only $45!! Am I thankful?! You better believe it!

God was so gracious in providing for us. This may seem like something insignificant to some people, God giving us a printer and a vacuum cleaner. But you know what? God doesn't just want to part the Red Sea for us. He wants to bless us in big ways and in little ways. He knew our budget, and He knew our needs, so He made it possible to get what we needed at a price we could afford. That's the kind of thing a loving God can do.

Thankful Thursdays is hosted by Iris at Grace Alone this month. Be blessed, and be thankful.