Kelly Conaboy is writing an advice column for Dipp readers. It's going to be very serious. So serious, in fact, we named it Very Serious: An Advice Column by Kelly Conaboy. Just email her at kelly.conaboy@gmail.com with your most crucial conundrums and each week, Kelly will solve one lucky reader's biggest problem. You can read all of Kelly's excellent advice here.

Dear Kelly,

At what point do you decide that you should just buy a printer?

From,

Lisa

Lisa, I feel your pain.

A printer, at this point in our lives, is I think spiritually similar to a primary care physician. Whenever you need one you feel ashamed for not having one, but at the same time, the idea of having one feels wildly out of reach, and you’re always confronted with the thought: Do people actually have those? Obviously, this can only be fixed by instituting a single payer printing service, but I’m not sure if the political will be there anytime soon.

I am lucky enough to know two people with printers: my friend Leah and my boyfriend. I’ve made Leah print things for me in the past, but mostly I rely on the boyfriend for all of my many screen-to-paper needs. Frequently before I see him I’ll send him a PDF of things I need printed; “things” being a euphemism for, mostly, return labels. But, to my credit, the things are sometimes not return labels. Sometimes they’re shipping labels for non-returns, or, like ... tickets for something. The frequent asking is, yes, humiliating, but not humiliating enough for me to have yet purchased my own printer, and not nearly humiliating enough for me to have returned to my old method of using the computer and printer at the UPS store.