Say Cheese?

We won't be saying "cheese" for awhile. This morning, after getting ready for church, Scott asked me to take a picture of the kids and him. He was getting ready to leave for his mule deer hunt in western ND. (Now that I type it, I hope that he wasn't having some kind of premonition??) Anyway, he asked me to take their picture. I took one, and it was black. I took another one, same thing, black picture. I was a little confused. I haven't really had any problems with my camera since I bought it back in February. In fact, I'm in love with it! I blamed it on the fact that they were sitting in front of the bright window, so I had them move to the stairway. Same thing, black picture. I messed with the flash, trying it with each setting. Nothing worked. Scott is getting a bit irritated now as he thinks I can't work the camera. I'm getting irritated with him because I know how to work my camera. Anyway, I gave him the camera and he looked it over, took out the batteries, etc. We put a freshly charged set of batteries in the camera and that didn't work either. After we did that, we noticed that there were some broken pieces on the door that keeps the batteries in place. I don't remember dropping it recently (I have dropped it in the past, but have never noticed any problems with it and it was working the last time I used it). I asked the kids if they had been messing with the camera and did they drop it. "No." I questioned Scott as well, with the same answer. We then discovered that the flash wasn't actually firing. Hmmm. Frustrated, it was time to go to church. Later this afternoon I got on the Kodak website to see if I could figure anything out. It did say that my warranty was still in effect, but there was a little disclaimer that said if the damage was due to dropping the camera, the warranty does not cover costs to fix the camera. I did the trouble shooting that it said to do on the website and nothing worked. It gave me instructions to mail my camera in and allow 7-10 working days, plus shipping time to get my camera back. I'm thinking I can't live without my camera for that long!!!!!!!! Any of you who have seen my scrapbooks know that I take gazillions of pictures. I'm thinking Emma has a dance recital coming up and I can't not have a camera!!!! Anyway, I print out the sheets I need to send my camera in to have it fixed. As I'm searching in my checkbook, wallet and purse for the receipt that I saved, but apparently threw away, Emma wants to help. She's picking up different pieces of paper laying on the table and counter, telling me she found the receipt. Then, I find the box the camera came in, wrapped my camera up in bubble wrap and packaged it up to send in to have it fixed. Emma asked me, "What are you doing Mom?" I told her I needed to send the camera in because it was broken. She says, with a very sad face, "I'm sorry Mom, I didn't mean to, but I dropped the camera and it broke." :-( Well, at least the truth came out. My camera is packed and ready to send in. This particular style has been discontinued, so I'm praying it can be fixed, as I don't want a different camera. After I read more of the instructions, it says they will call me after receiving the camera and have diagnosed the problem to give me an estimate on how much it will cost to fix. If I decide to not have it fixed and want it sent back to me, I have to pay them $35!!! I'm afraid to know how much it's going to cost to get it fixed? Then, if I don't, I hate to pay $35 to get it back! But, I also don't want to buy a new one! What would you do?