I have carried my little Canon Elph 450 around in my pocket for the last couple of years. Sometimes in a little red felt holder that I made (image sadly not available) and sometimes in a tiny knit glove – also red – that gift cards from Anthropologie come in (also no image). I have really really loved being able to have it at the ready to take fairly decent pictures of whatever grabbed my fancy – and so three weeks ago I thought that I would return the favor of all of the hard work that the camera has done by getting it a good cleaning.

This would probably have been the post – in itself – because the older gentleman at the store called me stupid at one point – said another thing that I suggested was just plain dumb – and then strongly pushed for me to buy either a belt clip or an around the neck holder for the camera. He was a real treat – and made me really miss going out into the world to see people.

So – camera cleaned – I took a few pictures – and what do you know . . . three little dots on the image.

I took it back to older gentleman who told me that there was dust on the image processor – and that with the age of the camera – it would cost more to fix – than it would to just buy a new camera. I grinned and said that I had bought it from Best Buy and that with my little protection plan – it probably wouldn’t be a problem to get it fixed at all.

He got annoyed and said that those protection plans weren’t worth the paper that they are printed on – that they didn’t know what they were selling – or how to use any of it and then railed about box stores for a bit more. I backed out – and went to Best Buy – walked through the line and turned my camera in to get all fixed up.

Well – it turns out that older gentleman may just be on to something . . .

(To Be Continued)