It sucks to lose things. It really sucks. You've earned money. Paid taxes on that money. Diligently researched what you want to buy. Shopped around for the best price. You've invested a lot of time and energy into "stuff". And then just to lose it? Well that fucking sucks.

It's even worse if what you lose is something that's either precious and irreplaceable or expensive. With a camera, it's often both. You have the cost of the replacing the camera and the memory card and the case and whatever other accessories might have gone missing. Plus you lose the film or memory card and all the pictures you've taken that just can't be replaced.

I once lost a camera while I was skiing in Turkey. It was at the end of my Turkish
adventure. I regretted losing the camera, even though it was a shitty Olympus point and shoot. It had a roll of pictures in there from my day of skiing and it was attached to an old school mini tripod that my grandfather had given me. I think it fell out of my backpack, but I'll never know for sure.

I thought I had a repeat of this event this week. When I got back from Santa Cruz on Sunday, I couldn't find my new Canon G9. It simply disappeared. It wasn't in either of the bags I brought although I searched both thoroughly several times. It wasn't in any pockets of clothing. It wasn't in the cooler. It wasn't in any of the places I normally stashed it. It wasn't in the car (or so I thought). I figured maybe I left in on the roof of the car when I drove off, which I've done before (thankfully not with a camera). Or maybe I left it at my friend Karen's house. I just didn't know.

I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the last time I used it and the only thing I could come up with was that I had taken some shots of Santa Cruz from West Cliff just before we went off to meet Karen. After that it was all blank. It was all but written off. But the morning, I had an epiphany that I had put it in the glove compartment. I couldn't remember doing it. Couldn't imagine why I would. But when I went to check it, there it was, sitting in the glove compartment, safe and sound.

*Of course, this is sort of a stupid thing to say. If you're looking for something and you find it in the first place you look, it is de facto the last place you look. But I think you know what I mean.