(AKA – “Walgreens! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?!”)

Posted on February 24, 2013

Written by Randi Zuckerberg (#RandiRants)

My son started preschool last week, a big milestone for everyone in our house. Naturally, I was a wreck the night before. To top it off, at roughly 7:30 p.m., I realized that his teacher had asked for two photos – one to tape on his cubby, and one for above his coat hook. Did I have these photos ready? Of course not.

I have more than 5,000 photos stored in my phone, but roughly ZERO photos actually printed out, ready to affix to a preschool cubby.

Where on Earth does one get actual, physical photo prints at 7:30 p.m.?! I got in my car and proceeded to drive around aimlessly.

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The good folks on Twitter had some creative suggestions:

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But then, like a beacon of light, look who came to my rescue!

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Walgreens. That’s it! There’s a Walgreens ten minutes from my house, so I immediately drove over, feeling pretty pleased with myself and my ability to source a viable solution, using only social media, in less than five minutes.

Well.

I arrived at Walgreens and was handed a cable. Apparently, I had to plug my iPhone into a kiosk in the back of the store so the kiosk would magically find all the photos on my device – and voila! – I could print those photos. Only, that didn’t exactly happen for me. The kiosk took ten minutes to even detect my device, after which I got a “spinning circle of nothingness” for another five minutes before the machine displayed the following message: “No photos found on your device. Please remove.”

Excuse me, Walgreens kiosk? I know for a fact I have thousands of photos on this device. I tried again. Ten minutes later, same message.

Screw you, technology.

The guy behind the photo counter was lovely, and you could tell that he felt sorry for me. When I asked if he had any other suggestions, he recommended I download the Walgreens app and upload my photos, which he could then print in store.

Five minutes later, I had the Walgreens app (a nice looking app, I might add!). I uploaded my photo, chose the Walgreens store location, and click! Easy! I was back on cloud nine, on the high of my technological prowess. There was no problem I couldn’t solve through social media and my phone!!!

Oh, just wait for it.

Fifteen minutes later, I returned from Starbucks to collect my images, admiring the envelope they came in and feeling nostalgic for the days of photo albums. Maybe I should print out all my photos? After all, it’s so easy.

That’s when I decided to open the envelope. And here’s what I found:

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“My son is green in this photo. This photo is green. I can’t hang this in his cubby.” I suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter and tears. “I have been here for over an hour and this is what I have to show for my evening!”

sixSix more attempts at printing that photo. Then six attempts at printing other photos. All green. It was now going on 9 p.m., and I had been there for over an hour. I decided to cut my losses and head home, green photos in tow.

“What are these?” my husband asked, incredulously. “They’re…artistic.”

“On the bright side,” I told him, “people spend a lot of time trying for that same look on Instagram.

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The moral of this story for me is that while I spend 90% of my waking hours talking about how amazing technology can be, there are definitely times when technology can make our lives harder, rather than easier.

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What will they think of next?

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