Weekend Wandering

Author, photographer and blogger, David McMahon at Authorblog asks a question every Sunday for anyone who cares to participate in answering and this week, his question brought up a remembrance for me: "What was your worst camera nightmare?

Now, I'm not a great photographer, not even a very good one, really -just someone who is usually the one behind a camera for family events. I just got a nice little digital camera for myself back in December and have been having a great time using it, taking all kinds of pictures of my grandkids, other sights and loving that I can immediately download them to my computer and then post them on my blog shortly thereafter.

My worst photography episode doesn't even involve taking a picture. Say what? Nope! Not at all.

Several years ago -I think it was maybe eight, possibly nine years ago now, my daughter, Mandy, had brought a puppy home. No, I didn't want a puppy then, sure didn't need one to train as my work hours were such that they didn't lend themselves well -not at all really -to the time and work involved in training a puppy. Mandy didn't have the time available that was needed for that either as she was working and attending Penn State at the time too.

But nonetheless, there we were with this puppy we named Hercules and he was quite the dog too.

I've never before -or since -seen or heard of a dog as destructive on such a consistent basis as this mutt was.

He destroyed a "rice pack" my aunt had made and sent me (for putting on arthritic joints) the same day I received it by somehow grabbing it off the middle of the large, oval dining table we had then, poked a tiny hole in the end of it and then, shook every bit of the rice out of it and all over the floor from the kitchen through the living room. It took us months to get all that rice cleaned up -or so it seemed.

That was just one of his many bad deeds.

But the one that really ticked me off greatly was the night I came home from work to find the new Kodak Advantix camera my older daughter and family had given me for Christmas -only used for one, maybe two rolls of film at the time -had been snagged from the rear of my computer desktop and he had chewed it almost beyond recognition.

There was a roll of film in it at the time, with a couple of pictures on it and I had to take the whole camera in to Walmart and have them break it apart further to get the film released so it could at least be developed then.

After that episode, I used nothing but disposable cameras until this past Christmas when I splurged and bought myself this little digital camera I have -and love- now.

And Hercules?

Eventually we had to take steps to find him another home. One where the owner/master would allow him access to the house and outdoors too and who would have the time to train him as well to become a respectable dog for that person.

Now, we just deal here with Cats! So far, none of the cats we've ever had have chewed and destroyed anything in the house. Clawed, yes -chewed, no!

And that, my friends, is MY worst photography incident!

Happy Weekend!