I have little doubt that given my unbelievable luck (or total and complete LACK thereof) regarding computers and technology, you guys must be thinking at this point that I am just making this shit up.  No one could possibly be as completely hopeless and inadequate as I am when it comes to things breaking or freezing up or frying themselves for no reason at all.

So ….. along those lines …..

Last week a friend of mine called and needed a few photos of her son taken for his yearbook PDA ad.  Would I be willing to do it?  And perhaps take some quick family photos of them at the same time?

Well, of course I would.

Unfortunately, I am sans camera while mine is in the shop.  I told my friend that I was planning on renting a camera today to have for the next few days during the kids’ holiday parties at school, snow tubing exemption trips, and a piano recital, however.  So if she wanted to wait until tonight, I could do it.  But we’d have to be quick about it because the deadline for turning in the yearbook photos is tomorrow morning.

Of course it is.

This morning I went to the local camera shop that rents equipment and asked to rent their Canon Xsi.  It was already rented out.

Of course it was.

So I rented a different Canon and just hoped that I would be able to figure it out. 

I met my friend and her family late this afternoon as planned, and took photos for them.  Things went well, and I managed to at least pretend I knew what I was doing, which is always a pleasant surprise.  I told my friend I would burn a cd copy of the images and get it to her later tonight, so she could meet the deadline at school tomorrow.

So then I came home, changed into my scruffiest sweat pants, a 6X (no lie) mens sweatshirt, whipped off the bra, and settled in for one of my favorite activities, photo editing.  Unfortunately, the camera that I wound up renting uses a compact flash card, and my normal camera uses an sd card.

Of course it does.

And although my desktop tower has drives for all different kinds of media, I still haven’t gotten it back from the tech dude guy.

Of course I haven’t.

And my laptop ONLY has an sd drive, and I sold my CF USB when I sold my old camera.

Of course I did.

So in a panic, because I had pictures on the disk, but no way of getting them into my laptop to edit them, I called my friend Alisa and asked if I could come over and burn a cd on her computer.  Thankfully, she was home and said yes.  So I barged over, scruffy sweats and all, and interrupted their family dinner to borrow the computer.

Of course I did.

Then I brought the cd home and uploaded the images to my laptop, then edited them.  At long last, I was ready to burn my girlfriend her own copy, so she could choose the images she liked best and have them printed.  Unfortunately, the cd burner on my laptop wouldn’t wouldn’t work, no matter what I tried.

Of course it wouldn’t.

So I copied everything to a thumb drive and drove to Walgreens to make a cd copy.

Where they only had one photo kiosk working, and it was occupied.  By a woman who didn’t speak English, didn’t know how to work the kiosk, and was sorting through 255 photos of the world’s cutest baby. 

Of course she was.

I kept wanting to urge her to just order every print and get on with it because a) the baby was seriously that cute, and b) I could feel myself growing older just standing there waiting on her.  And because I was out in public with no bra on, no WAY was I taking my coat off …. so on top of getting cranky, I was getting hot and sweaty.

At long last she was finished and I was next in line.  I inserted the flash drive, placed my order, and walked up the technician to ask how long before the cd was ready.  Half an hour?  An hour?

He replied, “It should be ready by noon tomorrow.”

Of course he did.

I explained to him I needed that cd tonight, for a morning deadline.  He explained to me that it was the holiday season and there were at least a dozen photo orders in front of mine.  With nothing else to do, I canceled my entire order and drove across the street to CVS.

Where I was able to upload, burn, pay, and walk away in less than 15 minutes.  Except I drank an entire container of chocolate milk while I was waiting and made myself feel sick in the interim.  And around minute 12 I said the hell with it and took off my coat, going braless for all the world to see. 

So do you see why I have to assume that YOU have to assume I am totally full of crap?  That no way could one person have such a hard time doing nothing more complicated than making a cd of images??  That you must think I am either the world’s largest shit magnet, hopelessly incompetent, or a big fat liar when it comes to my computer and camera stories???

Of course you will.