I was reading an interesting story the other day about some posts by a woman named Judith on a blog she put up after she lost her digital camera. This is the gist of the story. Her original idea was to assemble photos taken by other people she met whilst traveling, but the story went over to the dark side when a Canadian family contacted her to tell her that they’d found her camera, and that they didn’t feel like giving it back, why, because their kid took a finders keepers shine to it.

There was a huge scream of “mass murder to the offender” from week end warrior dueling banjos types, you know the sort that like to eat dehydrated foods by choice and nearly everybody in their family has triple barreled names ending in “bubba junior”.

Man… when I read their comments I almost wet my knickers. I could almost picture the fur trimmed dungarees’. I’m from the UK and reading the comments about this camera didn’t stop me imagining the scene of them cutting the grass and finding a rusting pickup. Anyway I digress a little, these “I’m jus laying these here rat traps up in them there hills, dog and wallet on the same chain, rag for gas cap types” were getting pretty aggressive I thought. Don’t get me wrong I don’t save whales, and I don’t eat them either, not because of conservation but because I don’t eat anything that wont fit under the grill, although I would help an old granny across the road if I ever saw one, but I’m usually driving to fast to be of much help. But I did think it was a little over the top and then you had the other side of the coin/ blog/ lawyers legal case.

To the erroneous and most of the time ambiguous “whatever, get a life” type, I think losing a camera that cost over $500 warrants a little Spanish inquisition don’t you. These odious individuals that refused to return her camera deserve some verbal character assassination wouldn’t you agree. Ok you lose the cam but it’s the photos that are important right? Ok it depends what the photos are of. If it’s of the cat licking it’s arse then no problem. But if it’s that once in a life time important photo on a stolen cam, the one that must not be sent into the recycle bin or fancifully formatted by a irreverent kid then you email it to put-photos.com and get them to print it right away.

There were some people beseeching her to post the details of this heinous family so they could impart one or two choice words in their ears; some Canadians were horror-struck that fellow Canucks were having a sense of conscience failure, but hey. Honestly are all Canadians that nice? I haven’t been to Canada so I don’t know. It looks nice in the atlas. Canada, nautical but nice. Very good marijuana, too, is what comes to mind for most Americans. Or so I’ve read on another web site.

If there is a “nice people” test, bit like a set of bath scales but for niceness out there please mail me and let me know. I’d be interested to see where I fall in the sea of weight for wickedness. Anyway I digress further. The story continues – those prescription glasses brown cardigans wearing worn elbow patch people at Worth1000 offered her a new camera, good for them, at least they can find a route to market with a little generosity. Hope it was a decent camera and not a bottom of the range 23 times returned and re-boxed, finger print on the lens, shaky cam Korean import.

All said and done it was a kind gesture, indeed, they are the milkmen of human kindness and they left an extra carton. Well done guys. I checked out their web site, it’s like what the rapture is for evangelicals. It’s like a geeky camera karma ying yang thing, the first image that loaded on their website was a delightfully old looking camera. 1700 circa ish, the sort of thing that looks really cool, worth a fortune, but Jessop’s don’t do any film for it, twas all leathery accordion looking, the red neck chuckleberrys would probably try and get a few notes out of it, get bored, then use it as a draught excluder. Anyway I digress, the hills have eyes community hurled intimidation against the family and their child who wouldn’t return the finders keepers camera, harsh and without sentiment, thus made for truly entertaining reading.

The “something like that happened to me” lower middle class, one careful owner forgive and forget group absorbed the blunder buster head shots from the hill Billy’s. If the “something like that happened to me” peoples statement were true then the whole of the earth would be littered with a plethora of digital cameras waiting not to be returned. And I have to say I have not seen any heaps around Birmingham UK. True, they would be stolen quicker than you could fill out an insurance claim.

You see, where I live it’s that bad thieves have to put their names down on a waiting list. I digress, eventually the whining “I don’t believe any of this is happening” people also joined the horde like a mantra speaker on acid, followed by the – the usual “I don’t believe you don’t believe it” whiners followed by the “I just don’t believe these; I don’t believe you don’t believe it” people.

The outrage was heart stirring, Judith if you ever read this, I hope your camera is better than the one you lost, and one last parting tip for you, download your images right away or even better, get them printed! And for the family living in the twilight zone I hope you get a hair on your lens.

So what do you think? Should young children have cameras? Snapper or snapped. The camera is in your court