A classic Mercury Retrograde adventure. I relate it here to help people understand the phenomena.

Its October 13 – a day before Mercury goes retrograde. I’m printing out a chart and I discover that I’m out of black toner. The printing is very faded. Not acceptable to send to a client. So I decide to order a black toner cartridge. Normally there is no problem. The company I order from is Staples, a well respected, office supply store. I go online to place my order. I discover that the cartridge I need for my printer, is out of stock. This has never happened before. They recommend another cartridge, more expensive, but it has greater capacity and works with my printer. This they say is in stock and they promise next day delivery. While I was online I also order a yellow cartridge (my printer is a color laser and requires different cartridges for different colors). Everything goes well. I place the order.

The next day (October 14, Mercury is officially retrograde now) the delivery arrivals in the afternoon. There is only one problem. I received the yellow cartridge but not the black one – the black one is the most important for me. Without it I can’t print anything. I call customer service and tell them of the issue. The rep was good intentioned – she meant well – but seemed completely at sea. Her system kept jamming up. She has great difficulty in finding my order. Then when she does, she informs me that the cartridge I need is out of stock and will be delivered on October 21. A week away. I complain to the Rep. “I can’t wait this long, I need my printer!” She says there is another option. I can arrange for 1 hour pick up at the store. Her system said that the store had two units of what I wanted. So, she has to cancel this order and do a new one. This was a whole procedure as her system kept jamming up. She put me on hold a number of times. Then I had to make a new order, give her my credit card number and go through the whole process of ordering anew.

Finally, when it was over, I ask “so when can I pick up my toner?”

“You’ll get an e-mail from us telling you when it’s ready”.

“Can I pick it up in an hour?”

“I don’t know” she says “the store is having it shipped from another location”.

“Hold on a minute. You just told me that they have two units in stock – I’d like to get there today and pick up my order.”

“Sorry sir, it’s not there today, wait for our e-mail telling you to come.”

The service call went on for a half hour – normally this would take 5 minutes.

Normally I’d be upset, but I’m smiling inwardly. Mercury is retrograde and the Cosmos is letting me know that we are in it right now.

The upshot. I received an e-mail the next day telling me to pick up my order. And I did so without incident. So there were delays, some frustration, but it all ended well. I e-mailed my client about the delay, and he was OK with it.

Because I understood that Mercury was retrograde I avoided much needless mental anguish. There was nothing wrong with me – its only the cosmic weather.

Normally I wouldn’t make such an order under a Mercury Retrograde, but there was no choice. I can’t have my printer down for 3 weeks. Life is like that sometimes. Sometimes we have to do things when the astrological aspects are not the best. In those cases we just do our best.