Tonight, I chose option "B" with the caveat that my workout had to be shorter than usual. Because the President spoke on Tuesday night, my beloved reality show "American Idol" got pushed from a Tuesday/ Wednesday airing, to a Wednesday/Thursday airing. So, I shortened my (already short) workout to make sure I got home to set the DVR so that we could watch American Idol on the big screen after RCIA. I also forgot my camera and Lucy had been alone all day. In short, running home before RCIA had four goals: 1) Set TV for Idol, 2) Take Lucy out, 3) Grab camera, and 4) Change out of the smelly workout clothes. And did I mention that all this had to be accomplished in a matter of about five, and absolutely no more than ten minutes?
When I walked in the door, the number of things I needed to accomplish in that short time quickly expanded from four to about four hundred. Greeting me at the welcome mat was Lucy. She was surrounded by the shreds of two pairs of Jennifer's filp-flops Lucy had found somewhere in the house. Lying next to that was my stuffed Mickey Mouse, which meant I had left my bedroom door open, and Lucy had entered the premises. After seeing Mickey (fortunately, he was without any scrapes or bruises), I made a B-line to my bedroom. It was 95% in tact. A few remnants of (what I think were) the flip flops were on my bed, and a different stuffed animal, from which Lucy had removed it's button nose several weeks ago, had been accosted again. Lying in the threshold of my bedroom door was Lucy's food bowl, which she has recently begun moving all around the house whenever she feels like it.
At this point, my blood pressure was rising trying to figure out how I would clean up the mess and still make it to RCIA on time. Because of the other things I had to do, I decided to just leave it there until I got home and could clean up. Because Jennifer wasn't going to be home and it wouldn't inconvenience her, I decided just to leave it there and clean it up later. I changed clothes, set the TV for Idol, grabbed my camera and made straight for the door. The problem is I simply grabbed my camera (in its bag) and didn't check to see if it was secured. As I placed the strap over my shoulder and opened to the door to leave, the Canon EOS 20D fell out of the bag, tumbling to the ground with a crash and a shatter. When I picked it up, the lens looked like this.
I sat in mild anguish throughout RCIA thinking about how much it would cost to get another lens. (I failed to consider the possible internal damage to the camera. I think this is a fortunate thing, as my stomach would have been a mess.) But, after RCIA (which I always love) and some prayer time, I was a bit calmer. I told Pete what happened, and when he got to look at the camera, he delivered the first piece of good news: the shattered glass payne on the end of the lens was actually a protective cover he had put on there and could easily be taken off and replaced. With any luck, there wasn't damage to the lens. My second piece of good news came when Pete and I tried taking several pictures with the camera: everything worked normally. It appers my camera is fine. *SIGH OF RELIEF*
Tomorrow during my lunch hour, I'll head down to Wolfe's camera shop in Topkea and pick up a new protective cover. I atrribute my fully functioning camera after a hard fall to that little piece of glass that took the impact for the team. I don't know what Consumer Reports says about digital SLR cameras, but knowing how hard this camera fell and how it still shoots like day one, I would highly recommend it to anyone who is in the market.
