Kelli hoped the thing might have tired of sitting in her empty office the past three days, no print jobs, no faxes coming in, nothing to do. Maybe it wandered off, she thought to herself. But she didn’t believe it. Sure enough, as she approached her cubicle, she could see it. Still there. As big as ever.

The thing was enormous. Squatting in her workstation like a gigantic robot toad, it commanded half the surface of her desk, and threatened to splinter its spindly legs with its bulk.

“Greetings, Miss Kelli. How was your trip to Milwaukee?”

“It’s just Kelli,” she said, putting her travel mug on her desk. “When did I tell you about Milwaukee?”

“You received a fax from the travel agent about it last week,” the thing said. “I remembered. I remember up to 125 faxes, even when I’m powered off.”

“Ah,” Kelli said, feeling a little creeped out that the thing had committed so much of her correspondence to memory. “Hey, listen, I didn’t expect you to hang around through the holiday weekend. If you want to take off, that’s fine.”

Oh, no, Miss Kelli,” the thing said. “You have rescued me from refurbishment. I exist only to serve you henceforth. I shall provide you with professional-grade, laser-quality prints. I shall make copies for you. I shall scan documents for you. If you have faxes to send or receive, these tasks, too, I will perform. You are my mistress. My life is yours until I break down irreparably.”

“Ah,” Kelli said. “Well, that could be any day now, right? I mean—there’s something wrong with—that is… I mean, I don’t want to be indelicate, but—you were refurbished for a reason, right?”

“Ahh,” the thing said. “The mystery of my origins. This is the one thing about which you must never ask. I simply cannot reveal to you the circumstances under which I came to wear the ‘refurb’ sticker on my box. I will tell you this, however,” the thing had pride in its voice now. “I am certain that you will find my condition quite indistinguishable from ‘new.’”

Kelli could see there wasn’t going to be any ditching this thing, not today, anyway. And it would be handy to have its 50-page auto document feeder and double sided printing capabilities—features she’d always figured were out of her price range.

“OK, she said. “You can stay here for now. You know, until your print heads wear out, and I’ll have to junk you. That’s the first thing to go on a printer,” she asked, feeling newly hopeful. “Print heads, right?”

“Ah!” the thing said. “You needn’t worry about that with me! My print heads are replaceable! I foresee us together for a long, long time!”

“Greeeat,” Kelli said, and sighed, and sat down to check her voicemail.

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