deborah, the print card fairy.

I helped Deborah print today.

I don't actually know Deborah. I only know her name because it is embroidered on her maroon polo shirt. Her embroidered shirt also says "Maintenance". I suppose she could really be named Florence and work in Accounting and just wear the shirt to trip people up, but somehow I doubt it. In any case, I was fooled.

Deborah came into the computer lab to print a page off the internet. She's never used the printers in here before, and asked me for help. Actually, she asked a guy named Steve sitting outside using his labtop, but he told her to ask the Lab Op, which would be me. I know his name is Steve because I know him personally. He needs no embroidery.

I sat her down and walked her through the steps of printing. She navigated to the Fisher Price web site, where she opened a .pdf file (an Adobe Acrobat file). It was a coloring book page, with a cowgirl with a horse and a connect-the-dot game. I asked her if she was planning on doing some coloring today. She smiled and said it was for a birthday party. I didn't ask her if it was for her birthday.

We printed two copies of the page, which took up all the money on her print card. Then she went back to print two more copies, depleting the funds on yet another print card. She knew the process by now, so I left her alone and went back to the nothing I was focusing on before she came in.

Five minutes later, Deborah left the lab, saying goodbye and thanking me as she left. I happened to turn around and look at the terminal that controlled the printer. There were five print cards sitting there next to the printer. Five. Print cards are valuable currancy here, no one just abandons them unless there's no money on them. And no one ever has five to abandon. I checked two of them, and both had either no money at all or exactly one penny.

This is the scenario I dreamed to explain the Five Print Card Phenomena.

In her line of work, Deborah finds things. I think she only works in this building, but that's four floors of careless college students. This building houses four departments: Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, and Computer Science. There are three computer labs that I know about, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a couple others that the other departments use. And so Deborah pushes her broom around the building and finds all manner of things, pencils, pens, notebooks, and print cards. Deborah is like the print card fairy, only she doesn't leave any money. Maybe she leaves Fisher Price coloring pages instead.

It all makes perfect sense. I have solved the mystery, as well as proved that Deborah could not work in Accounting.

Her name could still be Florence.