Shooting Blanks

The boys like to make things using scissors, tape, glue, boxes, etc...  Quite often the things they make are only identifiable to themselves but they love it nevertheless and overall, I suppose, they practice equal parts construction and destruction.  Ripping apart things to make different things.  It makes an awful mess most days though, and they like to use lots of paper; plain white paper being the 'choice' option.  Unfortunately they feel that a good source for white paper is from our printer.  After we caught them raiding the printer for paper one day we yelled at them asked them to refrain from taking the printer paper for play as it was needed for other uses like printing, faxing, or copying.

With Christmas fast approaching the creative juices were flowing and apparently white paper was in short supply.  I can't remember for what reason I was heading into the office but I found Sam taking a short stack of empty pages from the printer.

Sam!  What are you doing?  That is not your personal paper supply unit.  You do not take paper...

But I didn't get to finish chastising him as Sam cut across me.

I'm copying a blank page so I can have some paper.

This took me a moment to process in which time I asked, "What...?"  He repeated, "I'm copying a blank page so I can get paper."  Then he lifted the top to show me the blank piece of paper he had put on the scanner glass.  Only then did the full impact of his statement hit me.  I suppose if I can build a flat-screen TV from the contents of a shoe box then this copier should be able to produce new physical copies of the paper like some sort of Star Trek replicator, right?

Needless to say, today he walked out with his paper.