Stupid Me

Solved two birds with one screwdriver. 

Wait, what? Yes you heard me.

I was looking for my camera's battery charger. I have a Kodak camera so it's one of these wall chargers that you put the rechargeable battery pack into. A few weeks back I decided to move a bookshelf from one side of the room to the other. In doing so, I covered the outlet I usually use to charge my camera battery. It's also where I plug my living room AC in. It's not what you think! I didn't forget the camera charger behind the bookshelf! In fact, I moved it when I moved the bookshelf and stuck it in a much better location. 

The problem is that.. since that day, I apparently forgot where that better location was. I thought maybe I had stuck it in my electronics drawer in the utility room where I keep spare electronics, computer parts and spare adapters for my devices. I checked... nope not there. Well there's this drawer I keep on the side of my desk that I had started putting small things in like cables I connect my camera to my pc with, miniature lan cables for quick hookups, charger for my cell phone... stuff I use more often. Well I had previously kept those things in a little glass jewel container on a small bookshelf near my desk but I moved them to the drawer recently when I broke that container. 

So I ended up checking the jewel container, the drawer on my desk, the drawer in the utility room... nothing. I was so confused. Where did I put that blasted charger? I looked all over my desk then all over the living room, the bookshelves, the kitchen counter, the utility room, my bedroom (where I've probably never taken this charger at all) and many other places. I was so baffled. I sat down at the table and stared at my camera, having a chat with my mother in law meanwhile. Staring at my camera, I looked at the top where the case was popped open. I remembered how that happened...

Nearly 3 years ago, I was at Brangus in Jasper eating dinner. I had taken Rune (then, a newborn) to the bathroom to change her diaper. I had laid her on the diaper changing table and was cleaning her when she started smiling. I had my digital camera in her diaper bag because I took pics of her ALL THE TIME. So I grabbed for the camera to catch that smile... and... it slipped out of my hand. Just completely randomly, it did a backflip out of my fingers and took a magnificent swan dive onto the tiled floor. It popped the case open at the top where the two halves met and a little plastic clip had slid up from between the crack. I was so upset until I realized the camera still worked just fine... only the sound didn't work anymore. Oh well! I can take pictures without the shutter sound. No big deal! So I never worried about it. I couldn't fix it... so I just didn't care.

Recently however, I have been doing more and more handy things. I tried to fix my Xbox when it overheated. I managed to get it apart, put Arctic Silver on it (after proper cleaning) and get it back together. No problem! I felt so handy. It still didn't work. I had probably let it go too long honestly. But oh well. I learned some things along the way.

Thinking about that while sitting at the table with my mother in law, I suddenly jumped up and grabbed a screwdriver from the utility room, then sat back down at the table and started unscrewing the tiny screws around the case on my camera. I could see how the top was messed up and how it needed to go back together. So I pulled those screws and then pushed the plastic clip back down, prying the top apart a little with the screwdriver and pressing the piece in with my fingers. The problem was that the battery that ran the sound on the camera was not connecting with the contact and thus not powering the sound part of the camera (as best as I could tell). So finally it snapped into place and the case that had been weirdly open at the top for nearly 3 years closed. I replaced the screws, felt very proud of my now completely fine digital camera, and wondered why in 3 years I had never tried this before.

So at this point, I got up and walked over to my kitchen sink to wash a little grease off my fingers that had been on the handle of the screwdriver... and looked up and there was my battery charger... in the outlet behind the sink, waiting for a battery to charge. I laughed out loud. 

The moral of the story is... don't put your battery charger in some clever place like an outlet because you will forget it is there, and it just so happens that battery chargers don't stand out if they are somewhere sensible like an outlet. 

Alternative moral: I'm an idiot sometimes. But at least I fixed my camera. 

Hope you guys can get a laugh out of my antics. I know I did. 

Arsh out.