Today, I took my camera into the shop to be sent away for repairs for the third time in two months. That isn’t to say that I’ve actually sent it away three times, but this was my third trip down to the store in an attempt to send it away. The first time when I heard it would take 6 to 8 weeks before I would get it back, I decided to keep it just a little longer because I really wanted to take photos with it while I was in Banff.
The second time I took it in, the lady behind the counter told me they couldn’t “look it up” on the computer and I would either need my original receipt or have to pay $50 to send it away. Yeah right! I promptly decided I would come back on another day with my receipt. What a hassle.
Today I took it in, realizing full well that this means I’ll be switching back to my little Kodak point-and-shoot camera for the next month and a half—an idea that does not please me as I’ve become quite addicted to my Nikon D70s SLR.
The problem with the camera, and they tell me this kind of thing is quite rare, is that the aperture was somehow getting stuck after I would shoot a small number of photos, and then the next shot would be extremely under exposed and the display would flash the word ERROR in nice friendly letters. After a few seconds—sometimes as many as 30—the camera would return to normal pretending like nothing happened. At other times, it would just refuse to take any more photos regardless of what I did until I hit the preview depth-of-field button clearing the aperture from its incorrect position.
Although the extra trips down to London Drugs were a little bit of a hassle, I’m glad I happened to be there today because, while I was standing there waiting for the guy to fill out some paperwork, who should I see but my ex-fiancée Janine and her husband, Jonas.
It was a pleasant, but short, reunion. She told me a few things about her life and I brought her up to date on what I’ve been doing over the last two or three years. It was too bad I didn’t have my camera working—it would have been nice to take their photo; they looked really nice together. Her husband appears like a fairly on-top-of-it kind of guy and it sounds like things are coming together nicely for her. It’s fantastic when you can have such a genuine and guilt-free conversation with someone for whom you once cared so much about but had, at one point anyway, lost the ability to communicate with due to the baggage of a relationship gone bad and the complications of a new girlfriend whom was quite jealous of the old. I am happy for Janine and pleased to have found out what her life is like now.
The whole experience got me thinking how things really have worked themselves out for the best—it was hard to see that just a little over 4 years ago when we broke up.