Monday night I decided that we needed to get a new camera, we've had our old one for at least 6 years. It's a nice little digital number. Digital seemed like such a big deal at the time. We payed a little over 200 for it and that seemed like a real bargain. For Christmas I got a really nice little Fugi for my daughter Courtney. It was just under 100 dollars and she loves it. So I was thinking it was time for us to get something that had more mega pixels. And maybe, just maybe, instead of losing the manual, this time, we would actually keep it and read it and for once. . . . figure out just how to use the silly thing. I ran it past Don when he got home Monday evening and he was up for it. I had thought about going to Target since that was where I got Courtney's camera. Don thought that Costco would be a better choice. At first I objected. I had in mind a nice inexpensive, easy to use, little Point and Shoot picture taker, that for all intents and purposes would be pretty much. . . . . umm. . . Idiot Proof? Don won out and Costco it was. I walked right past the BIG cameras. You know, the ones for people that take classes. No, no. None of that for us. I didn't want to end up with a 700 dollar camera that we would need extensive college training just to take a simple birthday picture of someone blowing out their candles. I had to interrupt these two Costco employees who were standing around chatting. (I mean that's not what they are paid for, and I refuse to wait for two employees to finish a conversation so that I can get some help) The guy that stayed to help was actually pretty good. He knew quite a lot about cameras. And got the jest of what we were looking for in no time. I was most interested in the little Cannon Sure Shot Point n Shoot. Unfortunately they were out of stock at the moment. By the time he had finished showing me just how simple a little camera that old P&S was, wouldn't ya know it, Don had turned the corner, and, was looking at the more expensive, tons of features, instruction book an inch and a half thick, gotta have cameras. Crap. I knew that would happen! And right on his heels, is the helpful Costco employee who just seconds before had been showing me that nice little Cannon Point n Shoot Sure Shot, following Don, and saying to him, "now this one is really great!" Great. I speak up and remind everyone concerned that my whole idea, really, was to buy a camera that we don't need to take a math class and pass a written exam to be able to operate. "Oh no. No, no, no, no, NO!" (says the Costco guy) "trust me, this camera has so many great features and one of them is even a Point and Shoot mode". I have to admit, it is a pretty cool camera. In fact that camera does so many wonderful things I'm still not completely sure if we even have to be there. Not only that, it was normally 189.00 with an in store, instant rebate, coupon type thingy that means it's actually only 159.99. How do I argue with that? Don looks at me and says "Well what do you think? I think we should get this one?!?" Notice how he makes it sound like it's up to me? Sure why not. I do stick in the idea that I can always come back later and get myself that little Sure Shot when they get more of them. An hour later. . . . . there I am. . . . in my bedroom. . . . . opening up the new camera. It looks friendly enough. I take out the manual. The first four pages are all of the things that you SHOULD NOT DO. Now I'm almost afraid to even touch the silly thing. I do put the batteries in it. I turn it on. Everything in our room in the view screen looks dark yellow. I knew it. I KNEW IT! Just like that, I know that this camera and I will most likely NEVER be friends. Don comes in and I show the greatly exaggerated yellowness to him. Is he upset? Is he worried? No. But he is also completely fooled by this new (has it in for me already) camera. "Well of course that's how it looks" he says "because our walls have a yellowish tint and everything in here is yellowish like that". Don is one of the biggest, advanced technology enablers I have ever known. If it does something he doesn't understand then he just figures it's doing what it's supposed to and we just don't get it. I'm just the opposite. I know perfectly well that the picture in the viewing window should look just exactly like what the room looks like. I think Don figures that WE are the ones not seeing the great yellowness of our surroundings, that this superior piece of technology can see with one arm tied behind it's stupid back. He decided to look over the manual and figure it all out. I decided to watch TV. Every once in a while he will speak up and say things like. . . "Hey, this is really cool" "You know, I think you are really going to like this camera" "This looks like it will be pretty easy to use. I don't think we'll have any problems with it at all." Ummhmm. Yeah, that's nice. I made a mental note to look into local college courses for Engineering and Pre-Calculus, I think we're going to need them.
One Happy Bunch
5 years ago
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