With my head in the clouds, I dream of things customers might someday say to me…when I die and go to heaven, perhaps.
Usually we get stuff like “I need it yesterday” and “I can get it cheaper from the other guy.”
Do let’s daydream a minute and think of the many things we would like to hear our customers say, like:
1. No Hurry…take your time
2. Other quotes? I didn’t even know there were other printers in town.
3. Just tell me how much it costs when I pick it up.
4. That misregistration is hardly noticeable.
5. I love black ink.
6. Don’t worry about it…I always type my phone number wrong, too.
7. Can I do the press proof over the phone?
8. If you like it, I like it.
9. All those specs confuse me…why don’t you choose for me.
10. Deadline? I don’t want to sound stupid, but I don’t know what that is.
11. Missing photo? Oh that? I didn’t like that picture anyway.
12. Can I pay you in advance? Cash?
13. WOW…look at the big dots in the photos…I like that!
14. What’s wrong with Helvetica?
15. Proof? Nah, I trust you.

Now it’s your turn…share your dream quotes with us all, so we can fantasize together.

I finally found Jesus.
That’s right, I found Jesus. I was getting ready for my move to Austria, going through every box and drawer in my old house and there he was…the baby Jesus for our Nativity that we’ve been without for a couple of Christmases.
In addition to Jesus, I found my old waxer. It was the Lectro Stix Waxer with an extra box of wax. The box boasts the waxer is “skid proof” and “cuts paste-up time in half.” Good stuff.

The box of wax promotes the advantages of Lectro Stix Wax over the competition: “Micro-crystalline wax! Provides a dry-to-the-touch, easy-to-handle adhesive coat that slides easily into position…in contrast to tackier waxes that need synthetic additives to make them stick.” And don’t forget, Lectro Stix Wax’s “bond is positionable—yet lasting.”

What else did I run across? Oh, there were the rainbow colored Apple stickers for my car, E charts (some people would call them Type Guages), proportion wheels and burnishers…along with some X-Acto knives and blades.

I found my old Logitech Scanman Plus hand held scanner. Boy did I put a lot of miles on that fine piece of hardware.

My 56K modem was in a box…why did I still have a 56K modem?
On the software front, I found Adobe Gallery Effects…I think it worked with Photoshop four. I also discovered my Connectix RAM Doubler disks. Not that they’d work with OSX, but wouldn’t they be handy now. Doubling the capacity of my two gigs of RAM into four gigs…I need that.
And for the really old-timers, I found a few CompuGraphic CG101 Diskettes…unfortunately they were FULL, as noted on them with flair pen. I also had some font strips and width cards for the CompuGraphic EditWriter 7500. I threw the training manuals and cassettes long ago.

Why I had the premier issue of Publish magazine, I’ll never know, since the technology was outdated about a decade ago. In the stack of old mags I also had an old Desktop Publishers Journal and PostScript Journal. It was fun to flip through and look at what you could do with simple PostScript code if you had the time and desire to sit and write it. I was too lazy for that…I used Aldus PageMaker 1.0, with Microsoft Runtime Windows…on a PC 286 AT. Those, by the way, were thrown out long ago.
I’m sure many of us have things that we just can’t throw away. Perhaps we think this old stuff will someday end up in a museum, but maybe just want to have the cherished memories of line tape and hot wax.
What’s in your boxes? Share with us, without shame, what you’ve got tucked away for not explicable reason.
We really want to hear.