We would have missed this year’s Dubai Shopping Festival if our handy home printer and scanner had not started acting wonky and kept printing blank pages.

I took it to the nearby computer repair shop and should have been warned when I saw old PCs gathering dust in the shop window. It should have been obvious to me that technicians in this place were not doing their job properly and piling up all the pieces of equipment they could not repair.

“We will call you,” said the receptionist, handing me the job receipt, but not before warning me that there would be a Dh50 charge even if they could not repair my printer. I laughed thinking that no one can be that dumb. After all how difficult could it be to fix an old printer? After two weeks of silence, I went to the shop and the receptionist said she was just about to call me. “Firaaz”, she called out, and the technician came out from the back room with my printer and a sad look on his face. “We can’t fix this,” he said. “Printers are cheap nowadays. You can get one for just over Dh 100,” he said, handing me very useful advice.

“You want to keep my printer”? I asked the receptionist, pointing to the junk in the window. She laughed and said, “That will be Dh50.”

“Dad, where’s the printer?” asked my son when I reached home. “I need it to print my exam papers.” I told him that we are going to buy a new one, and the news thrilled none except my wife, who loves shopping, even for a printer.
“Let’s get a wireless one,” said my wife. “All these power and USB cables are cluttering up my desk,” she said. “Yeah, let’s get one that prints pictures from your phone,” I said sarcastically, and only later found out there is one printer that does just that, through Wi-Fi.

“When does DSF end?” my wife suddenly asked and then we started to panic when we realised we had just this one day to buy the printer at a discount during the shopping festival.
We all jumped into our car and rushed off to the nearest mall. “What’s that rattling noise in the back,” asked my wife. “It’s the old printer. I couldn’t find a recycling place,” I said.
The shop was full of people either pushing trolleys with huge TV sets or staring down at 5-inch smartphones. “Can I help you?” said a cheerful, young man, and when we told him we are looking for a printer, his smile disappeared and he pointed to somewhere at the back of the shop.

Checking reviews

We hadn’t time to do research so we pulled out our phones and started checking out reviews of the printers that were on display. “This one prints from the iPad, and even if you are sitting in another part of the house,” I said excitedly. “Dad, that’s what wireless means,” said my son.

“It’s sad that another DSF has come and gone,” said my wife, and when nobody paid attention to her, she slowly walked out of the shop. A while later we sauntered out of the shop, struggling with the huge printer box and a book of raffle coupons to fill.

“Wasn’t that great, we saved Dh400 buying this during the sale. You know that a Chinese lady won two cars with a single raffle ticket,” I said, while filling out the raffle coupons and dreaming of red leather seats. “Dad, you are not Chinese,” said my son.

“Where’s mama?” asked everyone suddenly, and then a message popped from up my phone: “You guys go home, I will walk around a bit. Don’t worry, I have both our credit cards,” it said.

Mahmood Saberi is a freelance journalist based in Dubai. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@mahmood_saberi