Note to My Future Self (First in an Occasional Series)

Dear Self,

We (You of the Future*, and I of the Now) have this problem. Rarely do we use our printer to print anything other than an 8.5 by 11 standard letter-sized document. About once or twice a year, usually at Viva's birthday and Christmas, we try to feed odd-sized paper into the machine to print out invitations or Christmas cards. Inevitably, the format is all screwy. Inevitably, we have forgotten since last time how we got the damn thing to work. It's a silly thing, but it's annoying.

The problem is that the paper is non-standard size, and the computer for whatever reason is not communicating to the printer that are feeding it non-standard paper, even though we have typed in the measurements in page setup. So it goes through as if it is printing on letter-size paper. Which is to say, it will print halfway across the (test**) page and lose half of the intended message. Why is it that this sort of thing never works to my advantage? Like, doesn't it seem to you that if I have to experience some sort of technical snafu, couldn't it be of the electronic banking variety, in my (our) favor? I'm just saying.

Here is what I have discovered, Future Self: you have to trick the computer. Ooh, tricksy. Tell it that you are printing on paper that is 8.5 inches wide. Measure the difference between 8.5 and the actual paper width. Add the difference to the margin in page setup. Try it, try it, you will see. Future Self, it will work. And there will be much rejoicing across the land.

Of course, it is after midnight and although I've figured this out, I haven't tried it yet because our husband is sleeping scant yards away and he will undoubtedly wake up if I make even the slightest sound, aside from tapping on the keyboard. Have you noticed he's a really light sleeper? Have you trained him to sleep more than 5 hours at a stretch, Future Self? Does he still say things like "I'm going to tattoo a blog across my body so maybe you'll pay attention to me"? Oh, you forgot about that?

Good luck, Future Self. Especially with the ozone and all that.

Muchos smoochos,
Me of the Now

* Hey, by the way, Future Self, what is it like there? Can cars fly? Can pigs fly? Has an asteroid hit the earth? Hello? Are you there?

** I never never use the actual "snazzily pre-printed, limited number of pieces" paper on the first go. I always start with a sample on the basic Office Depot multipurpose paper. Learn from my mistakes, Future Self (and any other poor souls out there).