The Luck of the Irish

Last Friday in the middle of the night I climbed a volcano, and it was pretty cool. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of my own to prove that I did said event. WHY wouldn’t I have any pictures of this, well the story goes a little something like this…

Three quick notes before I start:

1) I stole the title of this post from the title of Allison’s blog. So excuse me for not being very original, but this is a story about me being lucky [always, but particularly] on St. Patrick’s Day.

2) I don't think I am more than 1/16 Irish, but whatever.

3) I hesitated at the thought of actually writing this post because I could imagine the response from my mom. But the story is a good one so I’m going to tell it anyway.

So not many of you probably know the complete story of my camera, but it has been on quite the journey. (Just a warning—it’s a really long journey, and thus this will be a really long post).

Part I

The journey begins about a week before the trip in late December, when Amelie and I went to see the Widespread Panic and Yonder Mountain concert at the Pepsi Center. As we were waiting for the doors to open, the security guards were telling people they had to leave their cameras in their cars because they wouldn’t be allowed inside the concert. Amelie and I took lightrail, so we we’re out of luck. (We also follow the rules, which we would soon discover was inconsequential because several people snuck in cameras. But that is beside the point).

I called my oldest brother Matt because he is pretty cool and I figured that he might be hanging out downtown like cool older brothers do. He was not downtown and was about to enter a movie with his then-girlfriend (who is now his fiancé!!! That happened a few nights ago!) but said if we couldn’t find anyone else he would come pick our cameras up. I then randomly called my dear friend Paul, because I knew that he had at least one friend who lived downtown, and just maybe he would be visiting that friend and could come to our rescue.

It turns out he was not in the area, but still ended up being our savior. He was meeting up with a friend to go to another concert, and he thought she might be in our neck of the woods. So I called this random girl, who was taking a shuttle to the Pepsi Center at that very moment. She said she would be wearing pink, standing on a bench waving her arms. We didn’t have to wait more than 5 minutes--we walked around a corner and there she was, in pink, standing on a bench waving her arms. She graciously took our stuff, which she and Paul later dropped off in my parents' milk box on their way to their concert. Pretty lucky...

Part II

The second phase of the journey starts after going through security in the Denver International Airport. I quickly gathered my things that were loosely floating around the plastic bin, such as my computer, my shoes, and my camera, which was concealed under my coat. Now I’m not exactly sure what happened next, but based on how the rest of the story unfolds, I’m pretty sure that I managed to keep my camera haphazardly tucked in the folds of my coat, which I then carried in my arms all the way to my gate. I was really excited and really tired and was not thinking about my camera at all, apparently.

When our plane touched down in Houston where our layover was, a stewardess informed us that someone left a pretty nice camera at the gate in Denver. I looked across the aisle at my friend and co-study abroader, Shannon, and literally said, "Ooh, that sucks for that person." Then I thought, that person might be me. I don't know where my camera is. After rifling around for awhile this was indeed confirmed. Luckily, a decent person found it and turned it in. I called DIA to claim my camera and paid them $20 to ship it the few miles to my house, hoping that that would lessen the heat that I knew I would soon get from my parents. Then I called my parents, starting the conversation with something along the lines of, “I’m sooooooooo stupid and irresponsible...” to which my mom eventually replied something along the lines of, “yes, that was pretty stupid and irresponsible.” I then begged her to send me the camera along with various other items of importance that I didn’t bring, such as a Spanish-English dictionary, and ended the conversation with various statements of flattery/self-depreciation (“I don’t deserve parents as good as you”). After waiting for about five weeks, I finally got my long-awaited package. I should mention that packages are frequently lost en route, so for it to arrive at all was very lucky...

Part III

So we come to last Friday night, when we were climbing Volcano Santa Maria. Chris, who has the same camera as me (only with a much less interesting history) finally taught me that my camera has more than the two settings of video and not-video. I was elated that I could now take pictures of cuisine, a fireworks show, a boy kicking a soccer ball and more. I was pretty jazzed because I knew that this would revolutionize the way I take pictures. I took some senior pic-inspired portraits of some climbing companions, some dew-covered plants, and a cow at the base of the volcano while we were waiting for our bus, among other things. I was feeling pretty happy with my pictures.

Now again, lack of sleep plays an important role in the next camera-related blunder. When the bus arrived, I climbed on, sat in the closest seat, and immediately fell asleep, with my camera in the mesh side pocket, a terrible spot as it can both easily fall out and easily be stolen. With my track record, I don’t think it is quite fair to assume that the bus fare collector standing by me took my camera, but I can’t rule anything out I guess. When I got home, once again totally oblivious to the loss of my camera, I fell asleep and basically slept until Sunday morning. My mom had just changed my bedspread to a nice navy one with white dots, and I thought—hey, I’ll take advantage of my party/indoor setting and take a picture of my room, which is both a party and is indoor. And then I thought—shooooooot, where is my camera?

Being surrounded by Catholic students, I at least had some friends to pray for me. Jordan offered a prayer to St. Anthony, patron saint of all things lost (I guess): Tony, Tony, look around, something’s lost and needs to be found. I then went to see our guide from the trip, and he put me in contact with the owner of the bus. Each time I called the driver, he said he would call me later, but I was always the one to call him back. Each time he told me that it was out of his hands, which I fully understood, and that he would try his best. After he dropped us off on Saturday, he began his usual Central Park/Terminal runs, which means a bunch of random people getting on and off the bus at a bunch of random stops. The last time I called him I finally said, “I will pay you if I get my camera back,” which was probably the best thing I could have said.

Sure enough, on the Eve of St. Patty’s day, after I had essentially given up hope on ever getting my camera back, I got a call from the bus man. He said that after a lot of work, he convinced whoever had it to give it back. He asked when would be a good time for me to pick it up, and I said that I couldn’t the following morning because I was going to the municipal dump for class at 8 am. Bu of course, he was going to be the one driving our group there. Perfect!

So yesterday I got my camera back. As I said I would, I paid the man for it, although it was not relatively very much considering that otherwise it would have been a loss of about $200. When I got it back, it had the return address sticker that my mom placed on it removed, and all the pictures erased—I suspect it was just about ready to sell.

So all in all, I’m pretty damn lucky.