I'm traveling in a foreign country. I'm on a bus driven by Byron from the climbing club, and accompanied by a few familiar people. The day is getting warm, I'm wearing jeans and wishing I had brought my zip-offs. I have some back at the hotel, and I'm thinking of asking Byron, if we're going near there, of letting me hop off and get them.

We stop in a busy downtown area of a city, like in India, crowded with brightly dressed foreigners. We walk to a building and go down into the basement. I think I'm showing my new camera to my friends, or maybe that was a memory of something that happened before. Then I take out my camera to snap a picture, and it's in a funny mode. I mess with the switches. It seems the mode switch is in a position that I never use, and don't know how to use. It won't take pictures, it just plays some previously-taken movie and I can't figure out how to escape it, even though the "play" switch is clearly in the "picture" position.

Then I realize that it isn't my camera. It looks more used and scratched than mine, it's grey instead of black, and it doesn't have my favorite feature: the movie button, that allows you to take movies or pictures without switching modes (*). When I was showing off my camera, somebody had a similar one, but not as good, and they secretly swapped it with me.

I'm frustrated and furious over this. It doesn't have my favorite feature, that movie button, and now I'm going to have to pay $300 - again - for a new one. Seems I already rebought it at least once, maybe twice, and it really makes me mad. And it seems the perp is long gone by now, though I think I know who it was, this small dark-haired girl who was sitting on this couch with us.

I'm with Mars and another girl, and we go up an escalator back to the ground level, while I try to contain my rage. Then we go out in the street, still full of foreigners. The girls don't seem to know how to get back to our bus, but I'm pretty sure I know.

(*) My workmate Carol showed me yesterday that she has a camera almost indistinguishable from mine, but I noticed it didn't have the "movie button", which really is my favorite feature.