Ink cartridge

My printer is about 8 years old - it's an HP Officejet v40. It does everything and has done really well over the years. Recently it told me that the color cartridge was out of ink so I pulled out the spare I had in my desk and changed the cartridge. It ran the self test and only showed black and red! So I was getting ready to head to Office Max to raise a stink when I read the package and apparently this one had been in my desk for a while with an expiration date of Jan. 2010. I must have used a newer one earlier and now this one was dried up. I am surprised that it was dried up only 2 years after its expiration date but lesson learned is don't get ahead of myself with these ink cartridges. Anyway, I went on line and order another set (black one and a color one) from Office Max and got free shipping. That tells you how expensive these little suckers are if they give away free shipping! They said it would be here within 2 days and sure enough what should appear at my door on a Saturday but a special delivery by a courier driving a BMR SUV! She had a legitimate "signature" device and did have my cartridges. I was pretty impressed. So now I'm back in business.