Pardon Me. Have You Seen My Camera?

Let me start by saying that my household seems to have incredibly bad luck with cameras.  My wife and I have been married for over 10 years and in that time have lost or broke every single camera we’ve owned.  Before the unlucky pattern was uncovered we invested in some moderately priced cameras.  I still remember the fancy Sony digital camera that we purchased for $375 + tax.  We reasoned that it was not a bad price if you averaged the cost across 4 years and considered all the amazing memories we would capture with it.  Less than a year later the camera was dead.  My wife dropped it at just the right angle and killed the flash in it.  The camera still worked for outdoor shots but we couldn’t convince our families to host all of their events outside, especially in the dead of winter. 

After that unfortunate camera event, I was not all that interested in spending another $400.  My approach to camera buying immediately changed from buying a camera for the long term to buying a camera for the short term.  My wallet was still stinging from the first purchase so I decided to embrace a new strategy.  Buy the cheapest name brand camera I could find.  I scoured the online discount sites and lurked on Fatwallet for weeks.  Finally I saw just the post.  Office Depot had a clearance price on a Sony low end digital camera.  It was a 3.2 megapixel camera and had a 1.5 inch screen.  I wasn’t going to win any photography awards with it, but it certainly was good enough to capture the day to day happenings in our life.  I rushed down to Office Depot and got one.  After all the discounts the total cost was $77.  I smiled all the way home.  (Come to think of it, I should have taken a picture of my smiling face).  Every time I took that camera out I felt a sense of satisfaction that I had slayed the high cost digital camera dragons.  The pictures weren’t great, but they were good enough to develop in the standard 4X6 format and if you were careful you could even take a clear picture.  Forget about the action shots because the shutter wasn’t fast enough to capture the moment.  That wasn’t really a problem at our house though because we are all a little slow……  About 9 months after we got that camera it disappeared.  We looked all over the house for it.  We checked the couch cushions, under the seat in the cars, behind the wash machine, you get the idea.  I was disgusted.  While it wasn’t a $400 camera, it was still $77 of our hard earned money.  It was time to go without for awhile……..

Fast forward about 9 months.  Day after day we were missing capturing wonderful moments with our young daughter.  There were no pictures of her Halloween costume.  We missed Easter pictures that year and thank goodness someone brought a camera for her birthday party.  Enough was enough.  No matter how frustrated I was at our inability to take care of and keep track of a camera we were going to have to bite the bullet again.  I started the search online.  It wasn’t long before Sony started coming out with new models and all the stores started running clearance specials on the old models.  I reluctantly collected my coupons and bought another one.  It’s amazing how much better the cameras are year after year.  This one was a Sony 5.0 megapixel model.  The LCD screen was 2 inches this time and the shutter speed was MUCH faster than the previous models.  All in all I was happy with it and it only set us back $130 total.

The camera worked great and took pretty good pictures and movies.  We took hundreds and hundreds of pictures with it.  We got great pictures of the lake house construction, our daughter’s birthday party, Easter, Halloween, Christmas, and New Years.  Things were going pretty well with our new camera until one day about two weeks ago.  I had half heartedly looked for the camera for a couple days when I asked my wife, "Have you seen the camera?"  "No", she said.  "I haven’t seen it since last week."  Hmmm.  Did I leave it somewhere?  Did we leave it out at the lake?  I checked my bag, the cars, the couch cushions, behind the wash machine.  No luck.  I think I’m going to quit checking those places because all I ever find is dust, pennies and remote controls.  I finally gave up looking for the camera and hoped it would turn up in an obvious place.

A couple days ago I was in my office at the house and I heard my wife say, "Honey, I found the camera!"  Finally.  I knew it would turn up.  I walked out of the office to see my wife coming through the back sliding door.  "Uhhh honey.  Did you find the camera outside?"  I said.  "Yeah, I accidentally left it outside last week when I was taking pictures in the back yard",  she said.  If we lived in California, this probably wouldn’t have been a big deal but we don’t.  We live in Seattle.  Have you heard about our weather up here?  It rained almost the entire week that the camera sat outside.  The LCD screen was all fogged up and the camera was dripping wet.  While it turned on, the screen was foggy and we decided not to push it.  It’s been sitting in the kitchen all week drying out.  I would have tested it by now but we can’t find the battery charger and extra AA batteries.  Maybe I should check the front yard.