New Digital Camera

I bought a new digital camera. It's supposed to be a gift from my family for my birthday even though it's still a month away. I wanted to have it earlier so that I could take more good pictures of my precious days here. I bought it, but haven't held it yet, for I bought it online. I know it's not the safest way to shop, but I don't have a car to drive me to Fry's; besides, it's cheaper.

So I spent quite a lot of time doing intensive research on which camera I wanted and which store sold it for the cheapest price, when I should have been reading or writing, and finally decided on one camera and one store. It's a small, Canon camera, a much better one than the one I've got now. I was happy, too happy to read the reviews on the online store closely enough.

It was only after I pressed the submit button for my order that I noticed the store required me to call them to verify my order. Well, it might be good, I mean, it's always nice to make sure, I thought. But then I found other people's reviews saying that they would try to sell you more stuffs when you called. Hmm, I might not like that.

But I called anyway. And an answering machine said they were closed. I checked the store hour in the confirmation e-mail from them and called again the next day. They were closed.

Ah, what was going on?

I called again the next day and they were closed again. It made me angry. I was even PMSing. I sent them e-mails to cancel the order. Yes, e-mails. I sent my requet for cancellation to two different addresses they provided.

I waited for a day, but didn't hear back from them. I was quite furious already. I was even PMSing. I called them again, then, finally, someone actually answered the phone. He asked my order number and I told him. He confirmed my address and said the camera would be shipped in a day or two. I was going to cancel the order, but now that I seemed to be able to get it I thought, well, I could take it. I didn't want to go through the research again, and after all they offered the best price. So I told him to go ahead and process the order. He said okay, happily. I was so ready to hang up when he continued, "By the way..."

Instantly I knew what was coming, and it annoyed me again. When he began talking about how much I would need another battery, I thought I missed something, I couldn't catch his English, because he said the battery that came with the camera would last only for twenty minutes.

"Excuse me," I asked, "How long, did you say?"
"Twenty minutes!" He confirmed.
"Twenty?"
"Yes, TWENTY!" He was thoughtful enough to pronounce it very slowly and clearly so that I could understand. "That's why you need another battery! If you buy it from us, it's only ***(I forgot) dollers, 50% off!"
"But..." Twenty minutes. That probably means the camera is broken.
"50%. Fifty. Five, zero."
He was obviously trained to be nice to customers who didn't understand English well, but unfortunately fifty means five and zero together wasn't what I wanted to know.
"But the battery that comes with the camera is the standard one, right?" I asked.
"Well, yeah, but many people complain about it. That's why they recommend you get another one. And the SD card is also very small..."

It was enough. I had been already mad when I called, but now I was even madder. I interrupted him, "You know, I am BROKE! I can't buy anything else!"

It made the guy unhappy. He mumbled okay and said he would process the order, and I said please. And we hung up the phone.
He might have wanted to ask why I was buying the camera if I was so broke but he didn't. And the point was that I didn't need anything he was trying to sell me, which I guess I made pretty clear.

The thing is, do not try to push to sell things too much to a woman who's PMSing. Had he been in front of me, I might've bitten. But I usually try to be polite to people. Really.

Now I'm waiting for the Canon camera to arrive. Hopefully the battery will last for more than twenty minutes.