This was the last picture my camera took before it was killed in Paris. I was stupid enough to set it on a slick granite seat next to a fountain at the Louvre to take an automatic picture (rather than asking someone to do it.) I didn't think it was possible that someone may try to sit on it. After the picture snapped, I saw a girl walking toward the camera and I sprinted toward it, because I can't speak French and she didn't respond when I yelled for her to watch out. I knocked the camera into the fountain myself when I tried to grab it. Fortunately we were able to fish it out and save the memory stick, and I had two back-up cameras. But my poor camera died. It served me well. And yes, I learned something that day.

This is what I learned:

1. Don't set your camera on a slippery surface next to a body of water, especially when there are unpredictable people who don't speak your language milling about.
2. Sometimes when you have an abundance of something, you are less careful with it. This goes for everything (except maybe if you have a lot of kids; you probably wouldn't sit one of them unattended next to a fountain.) I had three cameras with me on that trip (one was a loaner from my mom, I'm just glad it wasn't hers that I took chances with) so maybe something in my mind felt safe, like, "well if this camera falls into the water, it's okay, I still have two more." Maybe that's why God only gave us two eyes, two ears, and so forth... we don't have three of anything important. We have ten total fingers and toes, but in each category, there are really five totally different varieties that have different jobs, and we only have two of each variety (two index fingers, two thumbs, etc.)
   
3. Sometimes when you try too hard to save something (or someone) that is in danger, you end up doing more harm than if you play it cool. If I would have just let the girl sit on the camera, maybe she wouldn't have done any damage. Also, I wouldn't have had to worry all week if the memory stick was damaged (we couldn't find a place to print pictures from a memory stick and I didn't want to place a wet memory stick into one of my working cameras and risk damaging them with water. I think of it as the Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader effect in the last movie when he essentially killed that princess girl (my husband will be so impressed that I included this analogy.)
   
4. Always be aware of your surroundings. Why didn't the girl look where she was sitting? What if there would have been bird poop on the bench where the girl was about to sit instead of my camera? I was aware of my surroundings because I sprung into action as soon as I saw her going in the direction of my camera. Unfortunately I overcompensated for her lack of attention by moving more quickly than I could think. So if you pay attention to your surroundings at least a little, you can give the conscientious people a break.