Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

I have a running dialogue with Kyle, my computer assistant who provides the technical know-how to keep my web site running so that I can concentrate on content. This conversation repeats itself almost every time my printer runs out of ink and one of us has to change the cartridge.

We reach into my office closet and extract a box the size of a hefty roll of masking tape. It is glued shut and is impervious to fingernails under its flaps. But within its confines rests the new ink cartridge. At this point, I exclaim in Charlie Brown fashion, “Good grief. They couldn’t make it any harder to open this box if they tried.”

I’m not sure who “they” are, but I don’t like them.

Then follows a discussion about why printer cartridge refills are sealed in such a secure manner because, after all, it isn’t as if their formulas were FBI or CIA top-secret information. I come down on the side of security; it makes them more difficult to steal from Office Max, Office Depot, Staples, and the like.

Kyle comes down on the side of image. He believes that when you pay between $20 and $30 for a teeny, tiny cartridge you feel more like you are getting your money’s worth if the packaging is bigger than the product requires and exudes power in its bigness. He believes printer cartridge marketing executives know this and use it to their company’s advantage.

Probably we are both at least a little correct, so it’s not much of a sticking point between us. What is the real challenge is to make sure my closet shelf always has a spare.