Where’s the water? It’s in the fax machine.

Gondolas in Venice

“We’re going to vote,” I told my three-year-old as we walked out the door.

We drove the mile to the nearest school and parked.

“Where’s the water?” she asked me.

“I don’t have any water,” I said.

“But where’s the water? There’s no boat.”

“No, not boat. VOTE. You’ll see.”

We went in and voted.

Next stop was Staples, a long overdue trip.

Last summer, while dusting some shelves, I knocked a small water globe onto our fax machine. This is one of the necessary pieces of office equipment for my husband’s process serving business.

While the perfumy smell of the water fill the room, I tried to rescue the machine from the ravages of the water and broken glass.

It was still able to send, but not receive or copy.

Due to a combination of my dislike of shopping and not wanting to spend the money on a new machine, we have gone for months receiving PDF files from clients via email in lieu of faxes. The problem with this is that my husband does not know how to use the computer. So every time he needs to retrieve a file, I need to be home, download the file, and print it out. Sometimes clients use a program that is incompatible with my computer, causing more frustration.

We also have a weird combination of programs that work on one computer and not another, and printer problems, which result in my having to email files from one computer to another in order to print out a simple document.

The other problem with faxing, which was present before the actual machine broke, was that I had to be home in order to manually switch the line to receive a fax.

All my problems related to faxing were solved today!

I found a display unit on clearance, as well as a machine that automatically switches to receive a fax, without requiring a second line.

Ah, freedom! Freedom from having to retrieve documents online, freedom from having to pick up business calls during the day, freedom from picking up the phone to hear the annoying BEEP BEEP BEEP of a fax machine.

It is so amazing what a simple piece of technology can do to change your life.