camera kaput

Grrr. This whole SLR thing is really starting to get on my nerves.

Just for the hell of it, I tried attaching my broken 50mm lens to my Digital Rebel just now, to see if enough of it worked to attempt to fix it. It worked—at least that half that attaches to the camera worked—but now, wouldn't you know it, the lens won't detach. And the camera won't turn on.

I've sent an inquiry to Canon. Hopefully, I'll find out what's wrong tomorrow. More likely, I'll have to send it in and lose the camera for at least a couple week (if not permanently).

I just don't understand. In thirty years, I've only ever had problems with two durable goods: my projector (which I dropped from a height of six feet, so I'm thankful it even still works) and an old Ricoh point-and-shoot which was too cheap to fix when the motor died. My seventeen-year-old Swiss Army Knife still works (despite a certain ex-roommate who straightened the corkscrew trying to assemble a barbecue). Super Mario Bros. still runs on my NES. I still use the sleeping bag my dad got in college.

But everything is breaking on this camera. Have I used up all my good consumer karma? Or is it something about Japanese cameras?

I'm about this close to tossing the Canon in the trash and asking my mom for my old point-and-shoot back. That Kodak is made almost entirely of plastic, but after 7-1/2 years, it still works. I took my best pictures with that camera—we have an understanding.