This past evening, I went to the local Office Depot to pick up ink for my Epson 1270 oversized photo printer. When I went to pay by credit card, the little machine asked me to authorize the purchase.

The screen read:

$99999999.93<br />[OK] [Cancel]

Now, I know ink refills for printers can be expensive, but this was a little too much. I told the cashier of the problem, so she tried to correct it. She hit a few buttons on the register and then the screen flashed the following:

$99999999.94<br />[OK] [Cancel]

I normally wouldn’t mind being overcharged a penny. I laughed again and said that I don’t think I could afford the Epson ink refills. I was pretty sure that I didn’t have enough money in my bank account to afford it. She tried a manual override and told me not to hit the “OK” button.

…I waited, and of course did not hit the “OK” button.

After having lots of good laughs with the other people in line and the cashier too, I began to wonder what would have happened if I would not have caught the mistake and would have just accepted the bill.

Maybe next time I’ll just buy the ink from Laser Monks, a group of real monks in a real monastery who sell honest deals at really low prices. Fifteen bucks for both the black and 5-color ink is a much better deal, I think. (For what it’s worth, the list price is typically around $54, which is also a much better deal than the cost given by the credit card machine, but not as good as the one those monks can give.)

Oh, and this is not an ad for the monks, I just think it’s odd that a group of monks who pretty much have no worldly possessions at all are concerned about the cost of ink. I guess ink cartridge prices really have gotten out of hand for them to take notice.