Lessons Learned

I take my camera just about anywhere. But I recently learned that isn't always a good idea.

We had to fly out of state unexpectedly to attend a memorial service. The camera didn't get used at all. I did use my phone camera; quite a bit, in fact. But the real camera was unneeded weight and expensive cargo I had to tote around everywhere to keep it safe and to prevent it from getting hot in the rental car.

There were other lessons, as well. So I've made a list for future reference

1. Don't take the real camera to a memorial service. You probably can leave the crochet bag and magazines at home, too.

2. Always make sure your driver's license is current when traveling.

3. Make sure you take ALL your luggage when you have to change hotel rooms because the bathroom sink flooded overnight.

4. Always keep a mask with you, even if not mandated. (We walked to a restaurant to pick up an online order but could not be served because we didn't think to bring the masks that were safely stored back in our hotel room, and masks were required at that particular restaurant.)

5. Reading a eulogy from a phone screen is a LOT different than reading from a piece of paper.

6. Ask the mortuary for a location before running across the lawn in 100-degree heat to view a headstone you haven't visited in more than five years.

7. Don't try to change the name on every financial and/or utility account of the deceased right away. Said institutions run credit checks, which each individually ding the credit rating of the surviving spouse who is trying to secure a loan to pay for burial. And for family's sake, please buy funeral insurance. So worth it. (We both have it.)

8. Don't schedule a necessary virtual medical appointment on a brand new holiday and then expect to remember said 7:20 a.m. (different time zone) appointment after repeatedly being told by all 17 previously mentioned financial and/or utility institutions they will be closed on said brand new holiday.

9. Make sure you know how to put gas in the rental car before you go to the gas station. And go to the gas station the night before your 5 a.m. flight, not the morning of.

10. $7 per gallon?!?!?!?!?

Tweet

Pin It