Overhead Projectors

So John sent a text with a couple of pieces of office equipment that they were getting rid of because they had become obsolete.  One was an overhead projector, and I really wanted it.  Sam saw the picture and asked what it was.

Me, "It's an overhead projector. You don't even know what that is, do you?"
Sam, "That's not an overhead projector. We have overhead projectors in our classrooms."
Me, "Those aren't overhead projectors. THIS is an overhead projector. You put a transparency on the light box and the mirrors above it reflect the writing onto the screen."
Sam, "No, an overhead projector is a projector that is bolted to the ceiling over your head."
Me, <wrapped in confusion> "                            "

Why in the hell were these things called overhead projectors?

Anyway, John was convinced it would never get used and he was probably right so it didn't come home to live with us.  Fast forward a few weeks and suddenly I have a desperate need for an overhead projector.

We're redecorating the library and one of the things we're going to do is put literary quotes on the walls.  As we were debating how best to do this and the librarians weren't jumping on board with my idea of making the art classes do it.  I really don't understand why people work at schools when you're not allowed to force the kids do shit. Then Niki says, can't we use an old overhead projector and trace the letters; and I smacked her in the arm and said, "SHIIIIITTT. I almost had an overhead projector!!!" I checked with John and the overhead projector was gone.  I checked a few more times to make sure that it really was truly gone and not just that he didn't want to bring it home. Yes, it. was. gone. but it turned out that the school had one in the equipment graveyard.  yippee.

The next stumbling block came after I found a bunch of awesome quotes to use and brought them into the library.
Me, "I decided to use only quotes from women."
Librarian, "I think it needs to be fair and let everyone have a voice."
Me, "So, you're thinking that men haven't had an equal voice?"
Librarian, "I'm just saying it needs to be equal."
Me, "Fine, I'll paint the female quotes and one of the men <waving my arm to indicate the entire campus> can come and paint the male ones. Besides it'll take years for anyone to even figure it out."

So that was settled and now I needed to find transparency paper.  Which is impossible. It no longer exists in stores and only a few clerk will understand what you're talking about.  You can, however, find vellum paper with is semi-transparent. How much of a difference could that make? Semi-transparent/transparent? I just needed enough of a reflection to trace. Right? Wrong.  You can't use vellum paper as transparency paper and honestly I don't understand why. The more I thought about it the more I began to doubt whether transparency paper actually worked.  Was this some rosy colored memory from my childhood? Was it like the Easter bunny? No, no they really did use transparencies and they'd even write on it and we could see it all on the screen.  I just know we did.

Transparency paper can be found online, but for whatever reason, ordering it seemed like a bridge too far. I mean, every office on the planet probably has a box of transparency paper sitting in the back of the supply closet with 23 years of dust on it. Right? And I have a husband who works in an office.  This prompted more texts to the poor guy who thought he was in the clear after convincing me that yes, the overhead projector was really gone. Choosing the path of least resistance, he came home with a stack of transparency paper and backed out of the room.

Now here's another interesting fact about vellum vs. transparencies. You can print on vellum just like any other kind of paper but transparencies, not so much.  The first one worked fine because it evidently did not touch anything.  The second one rubbed up against the first and smeared the printing.  "whaaaat the fuck?" Nope, printing on transparency paper isn't a thing anymore. What were they doing back in the day? Typing on it? When they rubbed off their writing with the side of their fist, the entire document didn't wipe off too. Why is this causing so many problems?  Little Miss Perfect Online didn't mention this when she told us all how she painted beautiful, inspiring quotes above the crib in her nursery. Neither did the rest of her internet coven. Interestingly enough, if you read the 1 star reviews on Amazon, they ALL tell you that sure the box says you can print on it but, and this is important, YOU CAN'T.  Fine, whatever, I don't need these things to last for ever, just long enough to trace the damn thing.

Oh, one similarity, whether you use vellum or a transparency sheet, you have to stand there and feed each sheet into the printer one at a time so it doesn't jam but it may jam anyway and you'd have to feed the transparency sheets one at a time anyway because of the smearing issue. 30 minutes of my life was: open document, feed in sheet, press print, wait, remove sheet, place it on the dining room table two inches from anything else so it doesn't smear, remind the kids not to put anything on the dining room table. And repeat. Fan-fucking-tastic.

Now do the easy Do-It-Yourselve overhead projector. This is so easy to do at home and all you need is a box and a lamp. Flip the box upside down, put the lamp under the box, place transparency on one end and voila, overhead projector.  This made perfect sense to me because if you can use a cardboard box to safely look at an eclipse, then this should totally work. Cardboard is truly a wonder. Nope. This doesn't work either. FUUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKKKK. Who are these women? This is why we have internet trolls.  You post these bullshit projects that don't work and you think we're not going to drive you to tears?  Payback's a bitch, darling.

I'm a week into this project and nowhere near ready to start tracing but it has taught me two things:
1) I'm pretty sure these inspirational quotes are not supposed to leave you standing in front of your printer, muttering, "fuck you, Maya."
2) 90% of all craft posts on the Internet are there just to fuck with you.