Some suckage, with a happy ending

Remember how long I put off buying my new camera, but I finally decided that I wanted a reward for finishing A COVENTRY WEDDING (okay, a PRE-reward, but who’s counting), and I wanted to have enough time with the camera to get comfortable using it before Saints & Sinners in May.

On Thursday, an INCIDENT with the camera left the pop-up flash inoperative. It would still pop up, but wouldn’t fire. I went by the store where I bought it, but they were closed, so I had a bad night worrying about it on top of my other things to worry about. (I try to keep plenty of those going; how else will I look YEARS older than 35?)

On Friday, I had some unpleasant business to take care of, but I also made a trip to the camera shop after calling them. First, Camera Guy gave me the news I most dreaded hearing: camera must be shipped to Nikon for repair. After I got all basset-hound eyed, another person came and looked at it, just in case, but he agreed. Then I asked if we could try putting a separate flash attachment on it. If that worked, I’d buy the flash, take the camera to New Orleans, and upon my return, happily surrender the camera to Nikon for repair.

At first, Number 2 Camera Guy thought it didn’t work because he couldn’t make the camera shoot at all. Ahem. I reached over and removed the lens cap.

SUCCESS! The new flash worked! When I was handing over my credit card, Camera Guy asked me why I had two driver’s licenses, and I told him one was expired. He [jokingly] offered to take it off my hands so he could sell it to some underage chick who wanted to look, uh, 35 when she went out drinking. To protect any remaining Bush grandkids (hey, my concern for America’s youth is bi-partisan), I took his scissors and cut up the old license.

I paid for the flash, went on my happy way, and took care of that other worrisome stuff. On my way home, after taking out a loan so I could put gas in Jet (it’s cheaper to buy camera equipment these days than to keep a car full of gas, and my SUV is FUEL-EFFICIENT, so no lectures), I called Lindsey. She and Rhonda were game to come over for take-out, non-Passover violating food from Barnaby’s, so I COULD have had a pleasant evening.

Except…once I got the camera home and began looking through the viewfinder, everything seemed all blurry. I thought maybe the INCIDENT had done more than disable my flash, so I got all panicked. When Lindsey arrived and looked through the viewfinder, she then glanced at me like I was maybe a little crazy. I tried it again. No camera: I could see all right. Camera in front of my face: everything blurry. Though I’d never had to do this with the D40 or any other camera before, I had to put on my glasses to see clearly through the viewfinder.

Lindsey suggested stress was blurring my vision. Tim got this LOOK on his face, and when I questioned him, he said, “You think?” Then he told me I was doing a good imitation of Regis when he gets all worked up about something. I told him he could only call me Regis if he pretended to be Kathie Lee and told me stories about Cody. He declined.

Anyway, at about 3 a.m., as I lay in bed convinced that I had 201 incurable eye diseases, I suddenly remembered there’s some kind of little switch next to the viewfinder. I made a mental note to check that out, but didn’t get out of bed because a huge storm was rolling in and Margot was already tucked between my feet under the covers trembling.

But I did check it this morning. It’s something called a “diopter adjustment” switch. When I changed it, I could suddenly see again! It was a miracle, just like the first Photography Miracle! When I told Lindsey, she wondered why she could see through it okay but it was blurry for me. I suggested that her young eyes may adapt and refocus more readily than mine, which is when she reminded me that I’m only 35.

So I’m still keeping my eye appointment this afternoon. But I wanted to post what turned out to be a non-story because of this diopter switch if for no other reason than to spare Mr. Puterbaugh, who bought the same model camera, a future incident of screaming, “My eyes! My eyes!” Because no one may be around to make him laugh by calling him Regis.