But yes, I love getting away from L.A., because well, L.A. is great if you have money and it sucks if you don’t. I’m scraping by, but not enough to love L.A.
So the family wanted me to join them on a trip to Cedar Key, Florida. This would be My Mother, The Phone Harpy Whom I Love Very Very Much; My Dad, The Great Stoic Wonder; my sister Agatha; her husband, Mr. Agatha, and Bug, my almost six year old niece. My parents picked the spot, as the original choices of St. John and Mexico proved not to work scheduling and money wise.
To go from thinking Caribbean! Woot! To the sleepy town of Cedar Key, where 900 people live, there's a strip of sand about 2 feet wide, and brown water was not quite what I had in mind. However, it was NOT Los Angeles, and that was good enough for me. (and to be perfectly fair, we did spend days at Ft. Walton Beach as well, where the sand was white and water was blue. Don’t look at those two places on the map and ask me why. Just…don’t.)
We had so MUCH family time, my GOODNESS it was a lot. I have learned that Bug cannot keep a secret to save her life, so she is not the best person to have on your team when you’re playing Clue, she is not the best person to watch a repeat of Food Network Challenge: Cake Challenge: Disney Villains with. She misunderstands the reaction of don’t tell me that! to really mean what a clever girl you are to share your knowledge with the world! Please do go on. No really, don’t stop.
We walked to the grocery store. We walked to the bookstore. We walked to the cutest little public library (with free wi-fi!) We walked down the “main strip” of gulfside bars. We took an island (use that word oh so loosely) boat tour where they told us Cedar Key’s two main industries are tourism and clams! Clams! The clamming industry is aces in Cedar Key! The one island we did stop at, where Cedar Key was harvesting the Cedar trees to make pencils in Pennsylvania, was infested with mosquitoes.
And I would have plastered pictures of all this on the blog, but I have learned the hard lesson that the worst place to lose your camera is in Cedar Key. Because even though you absolutely know where you last left it (Seabreeze On The Dock, oh yeah, I’m calling them out) the staff is less than helpful in trying to help you get it back. Even though the service is slow, the staff suddenly is too super busy to answer your queries of “Is there a lost and found?” “Well, everyone here has their own idea of what that is.” “Is the manager here?” “She left to get change.” (the next day) “Is the manager here?” “She left, she’s coming back, but you know, it’s Prom Night, we’ll be real busy.”
Prom Night!? Prom Night at the rockin’ clam industry town of Cedar Key!? Kiddies, whatever you do, DON’T BRING YOUR CAMERA! YOU WILL LOSE IT AND NOBODY THERE WILL GIVE A SHIT!
I am pissed, and not just because of the completely illogical reality that my camera, which I originally paid less than $250 for on Amazon in 2006, is now retailing for over $600 at the same site.
There are two possible options here:
1. A staff member picked it up, took it God knows where, and is blind/deaf/dumb to not hear that a Los Angeleno has left messages with her number to please call her if you have it.
2. A restaurant patron stumbled upon it and thought to themselves, hey! Free camera day for me!!!! Wasn’t mine two seconds ago, it’s mine now! Get me some clams pronto!
Which upsets me, even more than the September Break In at the house. Because that was deliberate, that was a criminal targeting the house. This was a chucklehead who stumbles over something that’s not his and decides to keep it rather than do the right thing of Turn It In, You Moron, It’s Not Yours.
I hope the clam industry is positively thriving in Cedar Key, because the tourism BLOWS.
I’m thinking it’s option number 2. I’m thinking it’s a chucklehead patron, as opposed to the steely I Can’t Help You, Please Leave Me Alone glares of the Seabreeze On The Dock staff.
Let’s pray for the chucklehead, okay? C’mon, it’s supposed to be a God site, we should rally here.
Dear God. Thank you for being Lord of my life. Thank you for allowing me to live in L.A. and pursue my career of being a paid writer for as long as I have. Thank you that I had money to buy a camera. Thank you that I had some great times with that camera for two years. Thank you for the geniuses who came up with digital photography in the first place.
And Lord, I’m not ducking responsibility here. I know it’s my fault that I left the camera. You know me, because You created me, and You were witness to the Let Your Anger Go conversion that happened around 2005, where I stopped losing things because I wasn’t panicked 24/7 like I used to be because I Let My Anger Go. Except this time, I did lose the camera, not because I was angry, but because I was finally relaxing and not paying attention to every detail.
Lord, it appears that a chucklehead in now in possession of my camera. They know it’s not theirs, and yet they’re hanging on to it, though they’re doomed once the battery dies. And though a very large part of me wants You to smite them, curse them, rain down huge heaping gobs of bad luck upon them, the snotty little Good Girl in me says I can’t ask for that. Ugh. Instead, ugh ugh ugh, I pray that you please bless this chucklehead. Rain down huge heaping gobs of blessing upon them. Open the proverbial floodgates, so they’re drowning in love, money, good fortune, and puppydogs. Let them win the lottery. Let them meet their soulmate. Let them bear above average children. Turn their lives around professionally and personally, so that they don’t have to resort to hanging on to things that aren’t theirs. In Jesus’ name, amen, amen, amen.
P.S. Please let me find another camera that I can afford. If You have time. Thanks!
Love, Amy The Writer.
Let us all mourn my camera by looking at the last shot I managed to transfer onto my computer before it slipped through my fingers. Behold: BUTT RUB.
1 comment:
Yay for going home and six year olds who don't keep secrets. Glad you returned unscathed, other than the camera.
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