Elvis has left the building

By the time I came around Elvis had already left the building, he died when I was 8 years old. So even though I have no active memory of Elvis, I do know who he is.

So, a few weeks ago, actually right after I got back from vacation, I decided that I needed a new camera.

Although I love my camera, it was almost four years old and I was tired of all the kids laughing at me when I pulled it out. The first thing people would say is "oh that's pretty beat up." "Yeah it goes everywhere I go," was my typical response and it was true. I've fallen in love with photography over the last few years.

Growing up I would play around with cameras but never did anything because it was such an expensive hobby...and it took forever. Even then I had no patience and photography meant WEEKS of waiting - literally!

In college I had 35SLR that I had no idea to use, but it was a pretty camera. Again, it took weeks to get results, still no fun.

Fast Forward to 2003 when I got my first digital camera! Finally, instant gratification! Why did technology take so long to catch up?

I've been doing my research online but decided to pay a visit to my local Best Buy to touch everything.

I have a love/hate relationship with Best Buy - as I'm sure you do as well - I like going there but the people working there are just plain out of it. But then what do you really expect for minimum wage?

I'm looking at cameras and I'm approached by the blue shirted kid. "hi, how are you?" and then he actually waited for a response......."I'm Elvis, is there anything I can help you with?" I wanted to snap "No, thank you I'm just looking" but I decided to ask him a question...well let's just say that we talked for a few and I ended up buying a much more expensive camera than I was looking for along with a service plan.

Now before you say "Well Geeze Michael, you fell for the oldest trick in the book, you're a fool, you deserve what you got."

But you know what.....the kid actually knew what he was talking about. He knew a few things I didn't and I felt confident in my purchase. I hadn't planned on buying a camera because I had just missed an 18-month free interest program they were running so I had resigned myself to waiting for the next one...but I tried something and it worked.

I knew that I was going to buy a Service Plan with the camera because honestly it's the only service plan I know I will use. See Best Buy covers the battery on Digital Cameras, and they'll give you a new one every year....for free....no shipping...nothing. I bought the Service Plan on my last camera and every year I got a new battery. The Service Plan cost $59 and I got $240 worth of batteries out of them.

I told Elvis that I wanted to buy the camera but I really wanted to take advantage of the 18-month interest free program I had just missed so I was gonna wait on it. So I asked if he would extend the offer. "Were you going to buy anything else today?" "I was thinking about the Service Plan?" Eyes lit up.....I asked him a few questions, made sure they still did the battery thing and said I'd probably get that when I bought the camera...."Let me go talk to my manager for a sec." "Ok, I'm gonna go look at some movies, I'll come back in 10 minutes" knowing that he'll have an answer in 4.

When I got bored of looking at movies, I walked back to the camera department but didn't see Elvis anywhere. There was another guy who tried to jump on me and I said "I'm working with Elvis." "Oh he'll be right back," was his curt reply. So I jokingly said "Oh has Elvis left the building?" to which he said "No, he's right over there." as though he were ordering a cheeseburger at McDonald's.

God, I'm so old.

And yes, I got my new camera....but I'm so old.