The mystery of the disappearing camera, solved
I had a camera in a bright blue case disappear off my desk over a year ago. At the time I chalked it up to underpaid construction crew members who had been walking in and out of the staffroom, making an opportunity theft easy. I asked around, but nobody had seen it. After a couple months of waiting for the camera to turn up, I gave up and just bought a new and better camera.
Two days ago I got to work and there was a note on my desk from the teacher next to me, the art teacher. As it turns out, he had found a camera in a bright blue case buried in the art room in one of the drawers. Obviously it didn't belong to the school. There were no pictures on the memory card, but another one of the enterprising teachers had done some forensics and found recently deleted photos of the Toramai festival. Thankfully, they put two and two together and deduced the camera must be mine. I was elated to get my camera back, and at the same time enraged that I had spent money on a new camera when my old one hadn't been really stolen at all.
What I want to know is who the hell moved my camera from the top of my desk all the way down the hall, through a locked door, and into the art room. If it was a prank, it was an expensive one. If it was just good old fashioned stupidity the perpetrator still deserves to be clonked over the head.
November 15th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Fortunately, as I see it, one can never have too many cameras....
November 15th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
When it "disappeared," were there pictures on the memory card? I would think if someone deleted your pictures, that would indicate "malice aforethought." Maybe they intended to take it home and couldn't figure out how to get it out of the building undetected? This is very weird. Have you offended any of the Japanese camera gods? (Like GAMERA?) (Ha ha)
November 16th, 2007 at 8:39 am
No, I always delete the pictures from the card as soon as I download the photos to my computer, so I know the camera was empty when it was removed from my desk. I hadn't used the camera in a couple weeks and it was just sitting there. It would have been easy to slip it into a toolbox or a backpack and get it out of the building no problem. For that reason I don't think it was malicious... but if it wasn't, then why was it moved?
November 16th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Could someone have thought it was something else, something that belonged in the art room? Maybe even some of those workers thought they were "putting something back"?