A Total Blonde Moment

I’ve had many blonde moments in my days. My parents love to tell people about them – there is no shortage of stories to tell either. My parents refer to them as lack of common sense stories, which probably makes more sense since I’m actually a brunette, albeit a light brunette.

Recently, I bought a camera for my upcoming trip. I have a really nice camera (this one) as you may already know if you’ve read this blog for any period of time; but, I didn’t want to take my nice one with me. For one, it’s large and requires its own bag which means more luggage for me to keep up with (blah). For another, as expensive as it was, I really don’t want to risk losing it, breaking it, etc. while overseas and for a third, I just plain didn’t want to keep up with a bulky camera. I want to keep it as light as possible whilst traipsing through the French Alps. So, I bought a smaller camera which takes really great pictures (this one). My friend Matt and his lovely wife Esther also have this camera and they take amazing pictures with it. Of course, they are amazing photographers and Photoshop masters and I am just…amateur.

The camera arrived a few weeks ago, but for whatever reason, I didn’t open the box to take it out and test it out until this past Monday. I decided I would take this new camera with me to my parents’ Fourth of July bash and take a few photos so I could get used to the feel of this smaller compact picture taking device. I opened up the slot where the batteries and memory card goes and put them all in… and the camera wouldn’t come on. I looked again at the +/- on the batteries to make sure I had them in right and still it was a no go. I flipped the batteries around and it still wouldn’t come on. I was perplexed and getting frustrated and panicky because it was only 12 days until I was leaving and the camera I wanted to take WOULDN’T COME ON! AHHH! I also couldn’t find any instructions in English. The only instruction book I could find was the one in Spanish and I no speak Espanol.

When I got to my parents’ house, I logged on to Amazon and requested an exchange and printed out the paperwork. I also sent a Direct Message on Twitter to Matt and asked him to call me – was there a trick to making this camera turn on? Matt called and left a message and when I called him back he asked me if I checked the batteries – yes, that’s the firs thing I checked. Well, then you got a dud, that sucks, send it back.

When I got home that afternoon, I called Amazon and asked them to ship the new camera ASAP. They said it was scheduled to leave the next day with one day shipping. What a relief. While I was on the phone with them, I miraculously found the English instruction manual. I looked at the battery location and realized… I had the batteries in wrong after all. I put them in per the instructions and voila – the camera turned on. Amazing how that works, isn’t it? When I originally put the batteries in I only saw a + sign where the batteries go and so I put both batteries in with the + side up. When I first put the batteries in, I thought it was unusual for both batteries to be in the same position, but hey, stranger things have happened.

So, I called Amazon back, told them I had the batteries in wrong and that there was no need to ship a replacement. I never felt so idiotic in my life. I’m sure they were probably thinking I was blonde too. So, the camera works, it’s headed with me to France and here’s to hoping my pictures turn out beautifully.