Thief!

(This happened last weekend but I didn't have a chance to immortalize it in blog until just now.)

Joey and I were walking around the atrium at the Gaylord last weekend taking pictures of inanimate objects and discussing where we were going to eat lunch.

When suddenly we spotted Hank The Longhorn.

He was a beautiful, actual, stuffed Longhorn and he was staring at us with his soft, black, pooly eyes. I fought the urge to pet him.

"Joey, Joey, JOEY!!!" I cried as I held on to the fence as tight as I could, so I wouldn't pet him.

"Do you want your picture taken with Hank?" He asked, indulgently as he set the camera case down on a nearby "rock" so his hands were free to take a picture.

"Of course!" I stood next to Hank and smiled broadly.

"OK," Joey said, "Now lean forward and pretend like you're kissing him on the nose."

I did so.

A very nice lady came by just then and offered to take a picture of us together with Hank The Longhorn. Naturally we did not refuse.

We thanked her, decided we were hungry and began looking for the camera case so we could leave.

"Um, Joey, didn't you set it on this rock?" I asked, pointing to the empty rock at my left.

"Yes....." Joey said, looking glum. He leaned over the rock and looked down into the creek bed.

No camera case.

"There go two of those rechargeable batteries we just bought!" Joey moaned.

"I guess we should always remember we're not in Iowa any more and that there are sticky fingers everywhere," I commiserated.

Joey wilted and poked around for a moment more. "Let's walk back along the path and see if we can spot it. Maybe we dropped it?"

I knew this hadn't been the case, but I said, "Sure." About twenty feet up the path, we noticed a couple who had been taking pictures by Hank The Longhorn.

And the girl was carrying our camera case!

"Excuse me!" I blurted out, "Did you happen to pick up our camera case?"

The girl looked duly embarrassed and said, "Oh! I think we did!"

(In her defense, she thought it was their camera case because it looked just like theirs.)

She quickly gave it back to Joey and apologized profusely. We headed on our way, quite pleased to have our batteries, cables, and camera case back. We haven't set it down unattended since.