Thanks to the thoughtfulness of 
iarraidh, and the patient tech-savy of 
tristan_knight, we now have a working scanner.  (I'm not entirely certain what to do with the old one, which no longer functions, but that can be dealt with later.)  I plan to spend some quality time today scanning stuff out of magazines I've saved over the years, so I can keep what I need without the shelf-space issue.
Need to add Best Buy to the list of places the boyfriend and I can't go without adult supervision.  We'd gone yesterday, just for a new powerstrip and a longer cable to set up the scanner.  We left with those things, plus two movies for him, plus two cd's for me--the Firefly soundtrack, and "Rise" by Anoushka Shankar. (Which I highly recommend--a blend of jazz and Indian classical music, by one of Ravi Shankar's daughters.)