The Secret Camera

You know those times where you find out something’s bad, and then every piece of information you receive afterwards just makes it worse? That’s kind of what happened this weekend.

I was digging through my backpack when mysteriously I found a tiny point and shoot camera similar to my roommate’s inside. I pulled it out and showed it to my friend Suzanne.

“Hey, is this Bonnie’s camera?”

“Have you turned it on and looked at the pictures?”

“WHY DO YOU ALWAYS TALK TO ME LIKE I’M A CHILD?!”

Ok, not really, but I hadn’t thought of actually looking at the photos on the camera to confirm that it was my roommates. The second the screen illuminated I was sure though.

Suzanne- “Of course it’s Bonnie’s, the whole menu is in Chinese.” Suzanne-1 Kaelyn-0

I brought the camera home and showed my roommate.

“Hey Bonnie, I found your camera in my bag from last weekend.”

“Yea, that’s not my camera”

“What do you mean it’s not your camera, the whole menu is in Chinese…”

“So because it’s in Chinese that makes it mine?”

“I’m very ignorant.” Bonnie-1 Kaelyn- 0

Bonnie turned on the camera. The last picture taken was of the Mona Lisa, so it couldn’t have been hers. We saw the Mona Lisa on Friday when we went to Paris and she had been taking pictures the entire weekend. I flipped a few pictures back and saw a selfie taken by a very adorable, young Asian couple.

Oh no….

I totally had someone else’s camera. For the sake of convenience let’s call them Danny and Sandy. I flipped through more pictures and saw a glimpse at their trip to Rome as well. My roommate Lauren came in and laughed, “Wouldn’t it be so funny if this was their honeymoon?!”

That’s when I got to their wedding photos. This trip was their honeymoon. Beautiful snapshots of Sandy in all sorts of dresses, people celebrating their love, pictures with parents. All of it was on this camera. Scrolling back there were photos of her trying on her dresses and picking out cakes. They had a Toy Story themed cake. What kind of perfect couple picks out a Toy Story themed cake?!?! Farther back still was a photo of them holding up their marriage certificate. Danny and Sandie 4 eva. Basically the most important and exciting parts of this couples relationship-probably the most important for the rest of their lives as well-was on this camera. Then came the photos of them with sick and dying relatives. It just kept getting more and more sentimental. In total there were about 2,000 photos spanning 6 months.

My first thought was, “oh how sad. This camera isn’t even worth $50 on ebay…” But then I thought about it a little more in depth. I would be so devastated if my camera were lost. Especially if 6 months of my most important memories were inside. Yea, there was probably a photographer at their wedding, but all of their honeymoon memories were lost except for their actual memories. AND they didn’t have a camera for the rest of the trip to take their adorable, peace sign selfies.

There had to be something I could do for Danny and Sandy. I downloaded the picture of the certificate onto my computer and emailed a copy of it to a Japanese professor at Chapman, trying my best to explain that I was using their address for good and not to find them and kill them… She emailed me back this morning with his address. Shipping to Japan from America is $200+, but the least I can do is mail a letter with the SD card inside. How freaked out do you think they’d be when they get a letter written in a language they probably can’t read with an SD card belonging to who-knows-what. That could result in a not so pleasant visit from the government to my house….

And then I’d sell the camera on ebay.

Maybe.

So we’ll see what happens. I hope they get it. They really are cute. Danny and Sandy 4 eva.