日常 - nichijou, Arawi Keiichi


It's 12:43 am.

The new fan is a lot louder, but at least it works.

"Remember to always use extra spacing for clarity purposes!" Yoshino calls as she leaves the room.

Mio stares blankly at the monitor as the computer continues to boot up really slowly.


It's 12:52 am.

Mio turns on the printer and puts a sheet of paper into it. She then opens up her document on the computer and hits ctrl + p.

"Please work already," Mio pleads. "I have a test tomorrow."


It's 1:03 am.

"Hmm, this is a problem, isn't it?" Yoshino murmurs as she examines the printer, which still hasn't printed anything. "Printers are always tricky. Maybe it's the connection. There are things you can try. You could restart the printer, unplug the printer for one minute and then plug it in again, restart the computer, reinstall the printer software… Oh yeah—take the disk, just in case."

Mio accepts the installation disk from her older sister.

"I'm going to bed soon, so hurry up and finish up, okay Mio?" Yoshino smiles as she leaves the room.

Mio turns to the printer. She lets out an exasperated sigh.


It's 1:08 am.

The problem with the placement of the printer is that the power cord and the USB cord are both right up against the wall. The printer's too heavy for Mio to move on her own, so she has to struggle with unplugging the cords without a clear view of what's going on back there.

It takes Mio far more than one minute to plug in the power cord again.


It's 1:15 am.

Mio's left arm is now sore from all of that reaching and fiddling with the cord back there, and now she has to try reinstalling the printer software with only her left hand, a faulty mouse, and a flickering monitor.

Mio twitches.


It's 1:36 am.

And of course, the keyboard just had to conk out on her, too.

She tries plugging the keyboard cord into several different USB slots, but that doesn't help.

Mio rests her injured right hand on her forehead as she continues through the installation process with painstaking slowness. She manages to get through the part of the installation with the registration key by typing it in using the On-Screen Keyboard, but that took way too long.

Mio doesn't notice, but her lips start bleeding slightly because of her excessive teeth clenching.


It's 1:47 am.

And now Mio is forced to wait for the lag to subside as the antivirus that her sister installed begins its automatic update.

Fun.


It's 2:05 am.

Mio goes onto the Internet to start searching for ways to fix the printer problem, since that software reinstall and computer reboot didn't work at all. Mio tries a promising-looking link.

The first thing that appears is a pop-up claiming that her computer has been infected with 1085 viruses, and that she should install the "TOTAPO" antivirus software right away to resolve this problem. Mio rolls her eyes. She's not stupid. She navigates her mouse to the X in the top right corner and clicks it.

Suddenly, an antivirus popup appears in the bottom-right corner, asking if it's okay to execute "TOTAPO .exe".

Mio's eye twitches. She clicks Disallow.

Windows Installer appears.

She hits the Cancel button with a snarl.

The screen turns black.

Mio's teeth clamp down involuntarily and a few drops of blood splatter onto the screen.

An installation progress bar begins rapidly filling up.

Mio's eyes widen ferociously. Then, the computer abruptly powers down as she yanks out the power cord.

After plugging in the cord again and allowing it to start booting up, Mio leans back in her seat, glaring at the monitor with a murderous expression on her face.


It's 2:36 am.

Okay.

Okay, it's working now. After desperately searching the Internet without avail, she tried printing her work again in an act of desperation, and to her surprise, the printer actually started printing!

However, Mio knows better than to start celebrating. There are two pages to get through. Right now, the printer is still in the middle of the first page. She glares at the printer as the piece of paper emerges slowly. You'd better get through the whole thing. Come on, screw up again. I. Dare. You.

The telltale clatter of the ink cartridges swishing back and forth suddenly grinds to a halt. The world is silent for a moment, except for the whine of the computer fan.

Then, the printer slowly spits out the page. On this sheet of paper, the text only goes down about three-quarters of the way, and then it cuts off abruptly in the middle of a line of text.

The printer idles. It shows no indication of continuing with the next page.

The stress ball in Mio's left hand implodes, foam chunks flying everywhere. She takes a few deep, shaky breaths.


It's 2:43 am.

"Alright, we're going to try this again, okay?" If looks could kill, the printer would have been destroyed a long time ago. "I am going to press print. And then you are going to print my file. Okay!?"

The printer just sits there.

Mio clicks print, turns to the printer, and then spends the next several minutes glaring at the printer with concentrated killing intent. The printer still hasn't shown any indication that it's about to print something.

"Do you really want to die?" Mio holds up a fist.

Thirty seconds pass.

Finally, the printer begins printing the page. It jams up almost immediately.

Mio's eye twitches. Her left fist clenches so hard that it starts hurting.


日常 - nichijou, Arawi Keiichi