I Am An IDIOT!

I bought a new camera just like the old one, intending to keep the new one and return the old one the next day -- in the new package with the new receipt -- because I don't ever keep anything like receipts and stuff and I also don't have any conscience whatsoever.

Except the new camera didn't work, either. In exactly the same way the old one didn't. So I called the number on the package. You might think I could have done this in the first place, except I didn't have the number in the first place, beacuse I didn't have the package. Of course I didn't have the package. I don't save anything, remember?

The nice Mumbai-nese man who answered the 800 number told me to take the batteries out of the camera, uninstall the photo-transfer program, shut the computer off and let the whole thing sit and rest for a couple hours, then put everything back together and re-install. He called this "resetting," and he told me if it didn't work to call them back.

It didn't work. I called them back. The second nice Mumbai-nese man told me to return the camera. I explained to him that I had, in fact, already bought a new one and the new one was broken too. He said, and I quote:

"Well, they can't all be broken."

Um.

So I returned the new camera in the new package with the new receipt -- or maybe it was the old camera, I don't know -- and told them it didn't work (which was the truth, go figure) and I wanted my money back (also not a lie).

I took my money and I bought a new SD card. Mr. Mumbai had suggested maybe the one I had wasn't big enough. I told him it had been working fine up to that point, and he said yes, but if mine was only 1 GB then maybe that was the problem anyway, because they really recommend I use a 5. Except the package says right on it "Use with any SD card up to 1 gigabyte." Or it says something like that anyway. I don't know. I returned it.

So I wasn't going to get the big-butt 5 one, but I did get a new 1 one, and this was the new plan: I was going away overnight. I would "reset" everything again just like they told me, only this time I'd leave it all uninstalled and everything for 36 hours. Because when he told me to wait a couple hours last time, the truth is I'd waited exactly 120 minutes. So it's just possible that maybe I had not been quite exactly patient enough with the resetting the first time.

I know, me, right?

So I'd leave it for a day and a half, then re-install everything when I got home, and if that didn't work then I'd try the new SD card. If that didn't work, then I'd return it, too. Who cares? The Walmarts can afford it.

I just got home (did you miss me?) and I put the batteries in the camera. It seems to be working the same funked up way it was before I left, but I can't be sure until I re-install the program... which I can't do because I returned the package with the disc!

No I don't still have the old one around here anywhere. Yes, I looked. Yes, I know it used to be right there -- for, like, freakin' ever -- but it's not there now. All right? So just shut your stupid face about it already, will you?

I looked behind and under and in and on top of everything. I even found a file folder labelled "Camera" and I said "Aha! Eureka! I have found it!"

You know what was in there?

The phone number.

I am an idiot.

So tomorrow I'll go somewhere and get a stupid camera that I will pay real money for. Maybe. Or maybe I'll get the Dora the Explorer one I saw for $14.

And then, when it breaks, I can curse in Spanish.

¡Puta madre!



Don't worry, I haven't made any more progress on the tree and I don't think I will tonight, either. I think tonight I need to curl up on the couch in my green flannel pjs with a quart of Kahlua sombrero and some Totino's pizza rolls, to watch the Very Special Christmas Episode of Pushing Daisies that's on at eight o'clock.

And if Kahlua or Totino's -- or Pushing Daisies, for that matter -- wants to give me a small consideration for my shameless plug, I promise to use it to buy another bag of toys. Which first one I had to mail without taking any pictures of the contents of. Because, you see, my camera broke.

And this, I believe, is where I came in...